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REFERENCE

BANKOF BOSTON

This book has been made possible through the generosity of
Bank of Boston

African-Americans in Boston

More Than 350 Years

Digitized by

the Internet Archive

in 2015

https://archive.org/details/africanamericansOOhayd_0

African-Americans
in Boston:

More Than 350 Years

by Robert C. Hayden
Foreword by Joyce Ferriabough

Trustees of the Public Library of the City of Boston, 1991

African-Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years
Written by Robert C. Hay den
Conceived and coordinated by Joyce Ferriabough
Designed by Richard Zonghi, who also coordinated production
Edited by Jane Manthome

Co-edited by Joyce Ferriabough, Berthe M. Gaines,
C. Kelley, assisted by Frances Barna

Funded in part by Bank of Boston

PubUshed by Trustees of the Boston PubHc Library

Typeset by Thomas Todd Company

Printed by Mercantile Printing Company

Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following individuals
and organizations for use of the illustrations on the pages cited:
T. J. Anderson (74); Associated Press Wirephoto (42 bottom, 43,
98 left, 117); Fabian Bachrach (24, 116); Bob Backoff (27 left);
Banner Photo (137); Charles D. Bonner (147 left); Boston
African- American Historic Site, National Park Service (38, 77,
105 right); The Boston Athenaeum (18, 35 top, 47 top, 123,
130); Boston Globe (160); Boston Housing Authority (99); Boston
Red Sox (161); Boston University News Service (119 right, 133);
Margaret Bumham (110); John Bynoe (26); Julian Carpenter
(153); Dance Umbrella (71); Mary Frye (147 right);
S. C. Fuller, Jr. (142 right); Robert Gamett (145 left); Artis
Graham (86); Calvin Grimes, Jr. (84); James Guilford (83); Rev.
Barbara Harris (136); Robert C. Hayden (33, 93, 141 right, 145
right top/bottom); C. Vincent Haynes (72 right); Barbara Holt
(132); Jet Photographers (159 top); David Kahn and Co. (108
right); Maria Kennedy (27 right); Joseph Kornegay (29); Afrika
Hayes Lambe (65); Elma Lewis (71 top); Jack London (51
bottom); Massachusetts Historical Society (92); Sandy
Middlebrooks (184); J. Marcus Mitchell (52); Robert Morgan
(87); Frank Morris (97); Christopher Morrow (60); Ed Owens
(82); Rev. Richard Owens (134 right); Dr. Thomas W. Patrick,
Jr. (142 left); Warren Patriquin (55); Isabella Ravenell (131);
Louis Roberts (149); Robert S. Royster (141 left); James Russell
(159 bottom); Fred Saunders (140); Schlesinger Library (64);
Judith Sedwick (25); Domenic Serenci (56); Ralph Smith (30);
Otto Snowden (127 right); Society Photo Company (42 top);
U. S. Patent Office (152 top); Liz Walker (119 left); Don West
(59, 100, 134 left, 186); Archie WiUiams (89); Ruth Wilhams
(68). All other illustrations are from the collections of the Boston
Public Library.

ISBN 0-89073-083-0

Second printing, corrected

To African- American History Makers
Past, Present, and Future

Contents

Foreword by Joyce Ferriabough 9
Introduction by Robert C. Hayden 11

Community Development 15
Civil Rights 34
Education 46
Creative Arts 61
Business/Industry 76
Government/Politics 92
Law 104
Journalism 112
Military Service 121
Religion 129

Science/Technology/Medicine 138
Sports 151

Epilogue 163
Index 165

Foreword

This book was born out of sheer frustration and an urgent
necessity. There needed to be a lasting record that chronicled
the important contributions of African-Americans in Boston
in order to educate our young people of all races and, in
particular, to inspire future generations of African-Ameri-
cans.

In 1988 Mayor Raymond Flynn and Rosemarie Sansone,
Director of the City's Office of Business & Cultural Develop-
ment, gave me that opportunity when they appointed me di-
rector of the City of Boston's yearlong celebration of 350
Years of Black Presence.

As I began to develop programs to showcase the events,
people, and places that helped shape African-American his-
tory in Boston, I expected that there would be volumes of
information about the people who lived in Boston longer than
any other ethnic group except, of course, the American In-
dians. After all, it was here in Boston that Crispus Attucks,
a Black man, became the first American to be killed in a
massacre which led to the Revolutionary War; here, that the
famous 54th Regiment rallied to fight in the Civil War; here,
where many of the nation's most prestigious Black leaders
lived or worked to inspire others and the nation — people
like Trotter, Wheatley, DuBois, Douglass, Stewart, Malcolm
X, Edward Brooke, to name a few. Yet I was surprised and
dismayed that there existed only bits and pieces of Boston's
Black history, and that there was not a single publication that
even attempted to chronicle this illustrious history. This book
was long overdue.

As I began to lay the framework for the overall design of
African- Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years, one in-
cident vividly replayed in my mind and convinced me how
important and necessary this book will be for today's readers
and for future generations. During the celebration of the
350th, I developed a program for the City's Parks and Rec-
reation Department which used art and music to teach Black
history to children and community groups who came to some
of the parks in the African-American community. First a

storyteller would unfold tales of Black people, places, and
events of importance to the development of Black history in
Boston to youthful readers. Then the children would create a
mural and "rap" song based upon what they had learned.
One day at the Trotter Playground in Roxbury, I was working
with the children from the Phillis Wheatley School and the
Crispus Attucks Summer Camp. "How many of you know
who Phillis Wheatley was?" I asked. One or two hands were
raised. One young man ventured, "a very famous person?"
"How many of you know anything about the person this
playground was named after, William Monroe Trotter?" I
asked. Silence. "OK," I said, "here's an easy one: who was
Crispus Attucks?" More silence. I was horrified by how very
little our children, out next generation of leaders, knew about
their history and their leaders — at a time when African-
American young people desperately need to know their past
to encourage self-pride and promote self-esteem.

I know that this book will fill that void and become a val-
uable resource — not only for African- Americans throughout
the state, but for anyone interested in learning the history of
a great people. Surely thousands of children and their parents
of all races and nationalities will gain a deeper understanding
and feel a kinship with African-Americans in Boston whose
proud heritage and accomplishments contributed to the bet-
terment of all mankind.

I would like to express particular gratitude to Bank of Bos-
ton which funded my proposal for this book and is making
gifts of African- Americans in Boston to middle and high
school libraries throughout Boston and to public libraries
throughout Massachusetts.

Joyce Ferriabough
Media & Political Strategist
and Public Relations Specialist

Introduction

"History is a clock that people use to tell their time of day. It
is a compass they use to find themselves on the map of hu-
man geography. It tells them where they are, and what they
are. Most important, an understanding of history tells [them]
where they still must go, and what they still must be."

Why Black History
by John Henrik Clarke
African-American Scholar and Writer

In one sense, African-Americans in Boston: More Than 350
Years was written to fulfill the meaning of history as defined
by one of my favorite historians. In another sense, this book
reflects much of my own personal journey through Boston's
African-American history during the past 20 years.

During my journey I have read more than 100 books and
articles, collected and studied more than 200 photographs,
conducted some 200 oral history interviews, studied early Af-
rican-American newspapers, and found in public and private
holdings old letters, documents, and artifacts related to the
African-American experience in Boston. I wish you could
have been on this journey with me; but since you could not,
I have decided to share with you some of what I have learned
so that you can take your own journey.

My preparation for this book actually began some 17 years
ago in February 1974 with the publication of my first article
on "Boston's Black History" in the Bay State Banner. For
some eight years thereafter my weekly column appeared, and
readers would ask, "When will you put all this valuable in-
formation into a book?" So it was that my scrapbook of more
than 300 Banner articles provided the foundation on which
to build this book. And the celebration of 350 years of Black
presence in Boston provided the motivation and the project
which led to publication of this book. During the three years
since the celebration which marked the arrival of the first
slaves here in 1638, I have expanded my earlier writing and

probed deeper in my research — and now the book is com-
pleted.

Much of what I discovered along my journey was buried
in old books, magazines, and journals. Some of the history
was hiding in old newspapers. Many photographs had been
stored away, not lost but sleeping quietly, waiting for a new
generation of eyes to bring the past into the present. Much
of the history was carefully stored away in the memories of
older residents who had been silently saying, "If only some-
one would ask — if only someone would listen."

African- Americans in Boston: More Than 350 Years is de-
signed as a convenient gathering of important facts about
people, places, and events in Boston's African life and his-
tory. The journey of the African-American men and women
in Boston since 1638 is not just a record of individual efforts
and accomplishments in the struggle for freedom, but the
story of their institutions as well — their churches, schools,
social service agencies, civil rights groups — and their in-
volvement in arts, sports, law, politics, and business.

As you travel through the 350-plus years contained in this
book, you will see that the contributions of individuals and
organizations to community development have been wide-
ranging, that there have been effective strategies and pro-
grams, bringing progress and positive changes in the com-
munity and throughout the city. You will find that African-
Americans in Boston as far back as the mid- 1800s protested
against segregated and low quality schools.

You will learn that African-American women influenced
virtually every area of human endeavor from earliest times
— in law, politics, civil rights, the arts, and business. You
will learn that in a city which is one of the medical capitals
of the world, African-Americans have made revolutionary
contributions to the development of medicine and health care;
and while Boston had no Black elected officials in city or
state government between 1896 and 1947 (over half a cen-
tury), great gains have been made in electoral politics in the
second half of the 20th century.

Boston has been the birthplace or home of significant 19th-
and 20th-century leaders such as William Monroe Trotter in
journalism. Reverend Michael Haynes and Minister Louis
Farrakhan in religion. Prince Hall and Melnea Cass in com-
munity development, Maria Baldwin and Ruth Batson in ed-
ucation, Maria Stewart and Mel King in politics, Harry Elam
in law, Roland Hayes and Elma Lewis in the arts, Lewis
Latimer in the field of invention, Eliza Mahoney in nursing,
and Wendell Norman Johnson and David Ramsey in the mil-
itary.

Certainly no one publication including this one can hold
all the significant people, organizations, and achievements of
African-Americans in Boston. It is my hope that this book
will spur additional research, books, films, and other works
that will continue to catalogue and chronicle African-Ameri-
can history in Boston and New England which I have started
with this publication.

For the story to be complete, you and others must be in-
volved. You and others must continue to research, discover,
and share information about the past. Then the travel through
time, which I have started here for you, will continue from
the past to the present — and into the future.

Enjoy your journey.

Robert C. Hayden
Author and Historian

Community Development

17th Century

In 1638, eight years after the original settlement The First Africans

of Boston, a ship named Desire arrived in Boston

with the first African slaves. Built in Marblehead,

the merchant vessel brought its cargo of cotton,

tobacco, and slaves from Providence Island in the

Bahamas.

There is reason to believe that Black Africans were
in the Boston area even earlier than 1638. John
Josselyn, an early writer of New England history,
visited Noddles Island in Boston harbor in 1637
and reported that he found in the possession of
Samuel Maverick, three Negroes, two women and
one man. Josselyn reported in his "Two Voyages
to New England" that the women could not speak
English and that the man seemed to have been a
person of high rank in Africa.

The year 1644 was a momentous date in the his- New England Slave Trade

tory of the New England slave trade. Before that
time Massachusetts merchants had occasionally
brought in Black Africans from the West Indies;
but in that year Boston traders imported slaves di-
rectly from Africa, when an association of busi-
nessmen sent three ships there "for gold dust and
Negroes."

Bostian Ken of Dorchester was perhaps the first First Black Landowner

Black landowner in Massachusetts. In 1656 he
owned a house and lot in Dorchester, as well as
more than "four acres of land planted in wheat."

Africans in Boston
before 1638?

18th Century

Prince Hall In 1787 Prince Hall founded Boston's African

Lodge Number 459, the first African Masonic
Lodge in the country and the beginning of Black
Masonry in the United States. The Lodge, cur-
rently located at 18 Washington Street in the Grove
Hall section of Dorchester, is one of the few Ma-
sonic lodges — Black or white — to have its orig-
inal royal charter, now preserved in a vault at State
Street Bank.

Four Black men — Cato Howe, Plato Turner, Parting Ways Settlement

Quamany Quash, and Prince Goodwin —
founded a small community (Parting Ways) in
Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1790. While they had
only Anglo-American materials in their environ-
ment, they brought their West African culture to
the community. All had been slaves and had
gained their freedom for their military perform-
ance in the American Revolution.

There were 766 African-Americans (4 percent of African-Americans in 1790
the population) counted in Boston in the first
United States Census in 1790.

In 1796 a group of Boston Blacks founded the Af-
rican Society for Mutual Aid and Charity. The So-
ciety provided social-welfare services, financial
relief, and job placement to its members and their
families.

19th Century

Between 1800 and 1900 most of Boston's African-
American residents lived in the West End, be-
tween Pinckney and Cambridge Streets and be-
tween Joy and Charles Streets — a neighborhood
now called the north slope of Beacon Hill.

By 1800 some 1,100 Black Bostonians made up Black Bostonians in 1800

one of the largest free African-American commu-
nities in North America.

In 19th-century Black Boston, centered on the Beacon Hill Barbershops

north slope of Beacon Hill, the local barbershop
was an important forum for the discussion of po-
litical ideas, the exchange of community infor-
mation, and the posting of job openings. Peter
Howard's shop and John J. Smith's barbershop,
both at the foot of Beacon Hill, were meeting
places for anti-slavery forces and stations of the
Underground Railroad.

African Society for Mutual
Aid and Charity

Early Black
Neighborhood

African Meeting House

African Meeting House In 1806 free Blacks in Boston, led by Cato Gard-

ner, raised $7,700 to enable Black craftsmen and
laborers to build the African Meeting House. The
Meeting House served as an anchor for the Black
settlement on Beacon Hill throughout the 1800s.
Until 1898 the Meeting House served as the home
of the First African Baptist Church in Boston.

Black Population by 1890 In 1820 the Black population of Boston was 1,690;

in 1890 it was 8,125.

Juvenile Garrison In the 1830s and 1840s Black Bostonians were

Independent Society providing for the education and intellectual stim-

ulation of their youth. The Juvenile Garrison In-
dependent Society, mostly teenagers, provided

Black history education for themselves and ser-
vices for the community — sponsoring lectures,
community fix-up and self-help activities, and
anti-slavery rallies. There were several youth
choirs, like the Garrison Juvenile Choir, which
performed its first concert in 1833 at the African
Baptist Church.

The African-American Female Intelligence Soci- Female Intelligence Society

ety was established in 1832 as both a literary and
a mutual-aid group. The Society sponsored lec-
tures "to become a moral force in the community"
and offered health insurance for its members.

In the early 1830s Jane Putnam and Susan Paul Temperance Society

formed a temperance society. In 1833 the group

was responsible for 114 African-Americans taking

the "cold water pledge" denouncing liquor. Two

years later in 1835 the New England Temperance

Society of People of Color was formed.

The United Daughters of Zion, organized Novem-
ber 6, 1845, was the first women's beneficial group
— Black or white — in Boston.

United Daughters of Zion

A group of Black Bostonians founded a local

Odd Fellows

chapter of the Odd Fellows, a fraternal organiza-

tion, in 1846.

For 84 years (1860-1944), The Home for Aged
Colored Women on Beacon Hill provided a resi-
dence and social services for hundreds of Boston's
African-American female elderly, many of them
ex-slaves who had worked in Boston as domestics
after the Civil War. The Rev. Leonard Grimes,
minister of Twelfth Baptist Church, and James
and Rebecca Clark were leading founders of the
Home.

The Boston Black population numbered 2,348 in Black Population 1880-1920

1865. By 1880 (after the Civil War), it had climbed

to 5,873. Throughout the entire period from the

Civil War to World War I, Boston had as large a

proportion of African-American residents as New

York, Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland; the Black

population represented 1.4 percent in 1870 and 2.2

percent by 1920.

Juvenile Garrison
Independent Society

Home for Aged Colored
Women

Black Neighborhoods
1890-1920

Around 1890 Blacks began to depart from Beacon
Hill and move into the South End. By 1920 the
exodus from the Hill was complete.

Woman's Era Club The Woman's Era Club was founded in 1892 by

Josephine L. Ruffin to further the welfare of the
"Negro race" generally and of "Negro women" in
particular.

The National Federation of Afro-American
Women was founded at Boston's Charles Street
African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1895. The
following year it united with the Washington Na-
tional League to form the National Association of
Colored Women.

20th Century

The Richard Earle Pioneer Club served the Black
railway workers in Boston during the first quarter
of the century. Providing sleeping quarters, meals,
and a place to relax for the Pullman porters, din-
ing car waiters, and chefs during "off hours," The
Pioneer Club was an important community insti-
tution for this class of Black workers.

Black Literary Societies Two important Black literary societies were estab-

lished shortly after the turn of the century: The
Boston Literary and Historical Society, organized
in 1901; the St. Mark Musical and Literary Union
in 1902.

Harriet Tubman House In 1904 the Harriet Tubman House was founded

in Boston's South End neighborhood by six Black
women who donated their time, resources, and
even their property to establish a settlement house
to "assist working girls (from the South) in chari-
table ways." Julia O. Henson (a personal friend
of Harriet Tubman), Cornelia Robinson, Annie W.
Young, Fannie R. Contine, Jestina A. Johnson,
Sylvia Fern, and Hibernia Waddell opened the first
Tubman House at 25-27 Holyoke Street as a lodg-
ing place for Black females who had recently mi-
grated from the South, when many social
institutions were closed to African-Americans in

National Federation of
Afro-American Women

Richard Earle
Pioneer Club

Boston. Today, some 86 years later, The Harriet
Tubman House of United South End Settlements,
located on the corner of Columbus and Massachu-
setts Avenues, provides a wide range of social ser-
vices to all needy people in the South End for the
development of the community.

From 1907 to the early 1970s the Robert Gould Robert Gould Shaw House

Shaw House served as a major social agency for
Black people in Boston.

By 1910 Boston's Black population was 13,500, Black Population

and in 1940 it was only 23,000. Between 1940 and 1910-1980
1960 the Black population of Boston jumped to
63,000, and by 1980 it was approximately 120,000.

The Knights of Pythias was a fraternal and benev- Knights of Pythias

olent order in Boston's small and growing Black
community in lower Roxbury that provided effec-
tive health insurance and death benefits to widows
and orphans. Anchored in its own building at the
corner of Ruggles and Washington Streets, it
helped maintain the family ties that knit the Black
community together.

The League of Women for Community Service was
founded in 1918 as a "comfort home" for World
War I Black soldiers in Boston. Still operating to-
day at 558 Massachusetts Avenue in Boston, this
Black women's group has consistently provided
charitable, cultural, and educational services. For
more than 70 years it has served as a meeting place
for Black historians, artists, and sororities, fra-
ternities, and other civic groups.

The Urban League of Boston was established in Urban League of Boston

May 1919 and has been dedicated to the economic
and social development of Boston's African-
American people and neighborhoods for 70 years.
In the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s especially, the Bos-
ton affiliate of the National Urban League was a
significant force in gaining job opportunities for
Blacks with major employers in Boston. In recent
years it has sponsored a broad range of educa-
tional services, from day care to teen counseling
and mentoring for Black youth.

League of Women for
Community Service

The first two African-Americans to serve as police
officers in the Boston PoHce Department were
Charles Montier and Joshua McClain, who were
appointed on October 15, 1919. Their appoint-
ments were the result of vacancies during the Bos-
ton Police strike of 1919. Following these two
officers, 33 more African-Americans were ap-
pointed between late 1919 and 1923.

Women's Service Club The Women's Service Club at 464 Massachusetts

Avenue has been a community institution for over
70 years. In 1933 at the height of the Depression
it pioneered a successful women's employment
program; during World War II it provided services
for Black soldiers. It spearheaded efforts to bring
protection to Black domestic workers under the
state labor laws. Today its elderly service program
and food and clothing emergency program con-
tinue the tradition of civic responsibility.

Hattie B. Cooper Community The Hattie B. Cooper Community Center, started
Center in the early 1920s by Union Methodist Church

(now Union United Methodist Church) as a settle-
ment house, is still "in business." Described in
church conference minutes of 1922 as "a bee-hive
of helpful activities among colored people of the
South End," it continues to provide social services
after nearly 70 years.

For the first half of the 20th century the entire
South End and lower Roxbury community be-
came the traditional and historic Black section of
Boston. Until 1950 most Blacks resided in a nar-
row geographic strip bounded by Columbus Ave-
nue and Washington Street and Dartmouth Street
and what is now New Dudley Street. The move-
ment of Black families to upper Roxbury and
North Dorchester occurred in the 1940-1960 pe-
riod.

Melnea Cass Melnea Cass (1896-1978), who fought vigorously

and successfully for the improvement of services
and resources for Boston's Black community for
over 60 years, had a new thoroughfare named in
her honor in 1981, Melnea Cass Boulevard in the
lower Roxbury neighborhood of Boston.

Early African-American
Police Officers

Black Neighborhoods
1920-1960

Melnea Cass

From her arrival in Boston in 1927 until her death Legendary NAACP Leader
at age 94, E. Alice Taylor (1892-1986) served as a
business woman, church leader, and Boston
NAACP official, leaving a legend of 58 continu-
ous years of community service. For 50 years she
served as an officer and board member of the Bos-
ton branch of the NAACP. In 1950, when the
NAACP's national convention was held in Bos-
ton, she walked the streets of the South End and
lower Roxbury finding private homes to accom-
modate the 400 conventioneers not welcome in
Boston's hotels. She was the oldest living active
member of the Boston NAACP at the time of her
death in 1986.

Maceo Harris, a 12-year-old student at the Sher- Young Master of Ceremonies
man School in Roxbury, was the master of cere-
monies for Boston's observance of Benjamin
Franklin's birthday anniversary in 1932. The cer-
emony was conducted in front of Franklin's statue
on the lawn at City Hall. Mayor James Curley said
of young Harris — "In all my long experience I
have never found any presiding officer with more
ability or dignity than the distinguished master of
ceremonies."

Rev. Samuel Laviscount

Edward L. Cooper, Sr. In 1933 Edward L. Cooper, Sr., was the first Af-

rican-American to be hired to manage a major
food chain in Boston, the First National Store on
Shawmut Avenue. From 1942-48 he was Deputy
Secretary of the Urban League and served as Ex-
ecutive Secretary from 1948-54. From 1954-62 he
served as the first Executive Director of Boston's
NAACP. A co-founder of the Metropolitan Bos-
ton Chapter of the National Caucus and Center on
Black Aged, he served as chapter president from
1981-1988.

St. Mark Social Center In 1934 under the late Rev. Samuel L. Laviscount,

St. Mark Congregational Church established the
first social service agency for children and youth
in upper Roxbury. The center pioneered in youth
development — "getting the boys off" the street,"
said the Reverend Laviscount. The St. Mark So-
cial Center operated until the early 1960s, when
the building was demolished as a result of urban
renewal.

Lucy Mitchell Julian Steele

Lucy M. Mitchell became the first African- Amer- Early Childhood Educator
ican elected to the Board of Directors of the Bos-
ton YWCA in 1941, where she served for seven
years. Previously, in the mid- 1930s she pioneered
the development of a model nursery school at the
Robert Gould Shaw House and led efforts to im-
prove and license day-care centers. A leading ed-
ucator in the early childhood education field, she
was an early consultant to the now famous na-
tional Head Start Program.

Organized with 58 members from 25 diff'erent NAACP Youth Council

community youth groups and churches in 1936,
the Boston Youth Council of NAACP held a mass
meeting a year later protesting educational ine-
quality in the Boston schools.

On May 1, 1936 the Robert Gould Shaw House Breezy Meadows Camp

bought Breezy Meadows Camp in Holliston, Mas-
sachusetts, which provided summer camping for
Boston's Black children and youth until the mid-
1960s.

Julian Steele, a Boston Latin School and Harvard Commissioner of Community
graduate, as the director of the Robert Gould Affairs
Shaw House in the 1930s, was a leader in the ex-
pansion of social, recreational, and educational
programs for the youth of the South End and

lower Roxbury. From 1938-49 he directed the
Armstrong-Hemingway Foundation. He served as
Boston's NAACP president from 1945-48 and as
president of the Urban League of Greater Boston.
Later he served on the Massachusetts State Parole
Board, as the State's first Commissioner of Com-
munity Affairs in 1965, and as Deputy Commis-
sioner of the Massachusetts Department of
Commerce.

Professional and Business From its founding in 1946 by Black professional

Men's Club and business men of Boston until its closing in

1987, the Professional and Business Men's Club,
also called the P&B, was a unique community in-
stitution at 542 Massachusetts Avenue. It was "a
place where you could get to know 'something' or
'somebody' that could be of help to you, a place
where you could have a good time socially, get
professional and personal support through friend-
ship and social exchange," said John Bynoe, the
club's owner and director during its last 25 years.
The P&B was a place where ideas were nourished
which led to the creation of a number of com-
munity programs and agencies.

Freedom House Since 1949 Freedom House in Roxbury, founded

by Muriel and Otto Snowden, has worked through
bi-racial efforts to reduce barriers to education,
employment, and housing opportunities for Afri-
can-Americans in Boston. Growing from the "Up-
per Roxbury Community Project," started in the
Snowdens' living room, this community-based in-
stitution today focuses on an array of educational
programs for children, youth, college students, and
adults.

Commissioner of Community
Affairs

John Bynoe at the P & B Club

Otto and Muriel Snowden Robert Coard

In 1952 Madeline Kountze Dugger Kelly of Med- "Mother of the Year"

ford became the first Black woman to be named
Massachusetts Mother of the Year.

Black migration from 1960 to the present contin- Black Neighborhoods

ued into most of Dorchester and Mattapan. Dur- 1960-1990
ing the 1950-1990 period Black neighborhoods
also developed in Jamaica Plain, Hyde Park, Ros-
lindale, and the Allston section of Brighton.

Since 1962, Action for Boston Community Devel- Action for Boston

opment, Inc. (ABCD) has fostered community de- Community Development

velopment in the city. For over 20 years Robert M.
Coard has served as director, one of the longest
continuous tenures for a community agency leader
in the city of Boston. On the human side of urban
renewal, ABCD has been a beacon for upward
mobility for families and youth through educa-
tion, job training, and encouragement of new so-
cial, economic, and educational institutions.

The Roxbury Multi-Service Center (RMSC) got its Roxbury
beginning in 1964 as a three-year demonstration Multi-Service Center

project, after Helen Y. Davis and Judge Harry J.
Elam and other community leaders became
alarmed by the large numbers of low-income peo-
ple moving into Roxbury and Dorchester at a time

Roxbury when public and social support services were dis-

Multi"service Center appearing. Once a small pilot project funded by

the Ford Foundation, the Department of Health,
Education and Welfare, the Office of Economic
Opportunity, and the Boston Foundation, RMSC
is over 25 years old and owns four buildings from
which its programs operate: among them, youth
development, adult and family services, a family
housing shelter, and assessment and counseling
which include housing assistance and crime pre-
vention. Perhaps the greatest indicator of RMSC's
contributions to community development is the
fact that it was instrumental in the creation of La
Alianza, an agency serving the Hispanic commu-
nity, and the Quincy-Geneva Housing Corpora-
tion, which has already renovated several hundred
units for low- and moderate-income residents.

Museum of The Museum of Afro-American History was es-

Afro-American History tablished in Boston in 1964. Its leading founders

were Dean Howard Thurman of Boston University
and his wife Sue Bailey Thurman. The Museum
was established "to advance knowledge, through
historic examination," about the African-Ameri-
can presence in Boston and New England. The
Museum's first curator and manager was J. Mar-
cus Mitchell. Serving as director for more than 15
years, Byron Rushing, who currently serves as
state representative, built a record of dynamic
growth and development for the Museum. In 1987
the Museum found a permanent home when it re-
opened the doors of the oldest standing Black
church in the nation — the African Meeting
House, built in 1806 on Smith Court, Beacon Hill.
Under the leadership of Ruth M. Batson and
Henry Hampton in the late 1980s, the Museum
has become a vibrant and growing center of Afri-
can-American educational and cultural activity.
Monica Fairbairn was appointed executive direc-
tor in the fall of 1989.

Advocate for Charles "Chuck" Turner, executive director of the

Community Development Center for Community Action, has been a com-

munity organizer, activist, and advocate for Bos-
ton's African-American community for over 20
years. He has a record of effectively organizing
people to confront city and state agencies for jobs,

affordable housing, and equitable land use. In
1967 he organized Mothers for Adequate Welfare;
in the late 1960s he led the Black United Front to
gain adequate funding for community economic
and educational development. Turner was a lead-
ing architect of the Boston Jobs Coalition whose
efforts helped create the Boston Jobs for Boston
Residents Ordinance, now in effect, guaranteeing
a percentage of jobs for people of color and
women on all city construction projects.

In 1968 a group of neighbors from Dorchester Lena Park Associates

formed Lena Park Associates to address the press-
ing housing needs that existed in the burgeoning
Black neighborhoods of North Dorchester and
Mattapan. The group quickly realized that it had
more to do than just address the housing situa-
tion. Today the Lena Park Community Develop-
ment Corporation, now in its 22nd year in
Roxbury, Dorchester, and Mattapan, provides a
range of programs: tutoring and academic advise-
ment, career development and employment coun-
seling, day care, young adult social development,
family advocacy, and youth recreational activities,
including a summer camp for children. Most re-
cently Lena Park Development Corporation has
rehabilitated a number of housing units through-
out the community it serves.

Aswalos House, a satellite of Boston's YWCA at Aswalos House

the corner of Maple and Seaver Streets in upper

Roxbury, was opened in the Black community in

1968 and has continuously provided educational,

social, and recreational services for young girls and

women for over 20 years.

Advocate for
Community Development

"Chuck" Turner

Roxbury Action Program The Roxbury Action Program (RAP), led by

George Morrison and Lloyd King, was established
in 1969 in the Highland Park section of Roxbury
to renew a severely blighted neighborhood. Dur-
ing the past 20 years RAP has rehabilitated 260
units of housing for nearly 800 people and brought
major physical improvements to the landscape.

Black Population in 1970 In 1970, 51 percent of Boston's African-Ameri-

cans had been born outside of Massachusetts and
had migrated to the state, and most of the new-
comers (29 percent of the entire Black population)
were of southern origin.

Long Bay Management Since 1970 Long Bay Management, led by foun-

der and president Kenneth Guscott, has built, ren-
ovated, and managed more than 1,000 housing
units in Roxbury.

Successful Housing The Lower Roxbury Community Corporation un-

Development der the leadership of Ralph D. Smith, between

1972 and 1980, developed housing for the elderly
and low-income residents and townhouses with 570
housing units. Organized in 1966, LRCC was the
first neighborhood group to initiate and develop
housing in the country. Ralph D. Smith was
named the American Society of Planning Officials
(ASPO) Planner of the Year in 1974. The ASPO
honored him "for leading and validating a neigh-
borhood voice, for initiating plans and imple-
menting techniques to upgrade the inner city
environment, and for making the decision process
work better," through the Lower Roxbury Com-
munity Corporation.

Ralph Smith

Five African-Americans of Boston have received MacArthur Fellows

the prestigious MacArthur Fellows award from the
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
in Chicago: Elma Lewis (1981) for Arts Educa-
tion; Robert Moses (1982) Philosophy and Edu-
cation; Sara Lawrence Lightfoot (1984) Sociology
of Education; Muriel Snowden (1987) Commu-
nity Organization; and George Russell (1989) Jazz
Composition and Theory. MacArthur Fellows re-
ceive financial awards to enhance their creative ac-
complishments.

In 1983 City Councilor Bruce C. Boiling intro-
duced and sponsored a new and revolutionary
concept to the Boston urban development scene.
His parcel-to-parcel linkage plan, accepted by the
Boston City Council and Boston Redevelopment
Authority, requires developers of downtown com-
mercial real estate to contribute funds for housing
improvements in the city's depressed neighbor-
hoods. The linkage concept, researched and fash-
ioned by political strategist Joyce Ferriabough, has
resulted in the leveraging of linkage monies for a
number of projects to revitalize Boston's neigh-
borhoods.

The anti-drug program, Drop-A-Dime/Report-A- Drop-A-Dime
Crime, Inc., was founded in 1983 by Georgette
Watson and Rev. Bruce Wall to combat the ramp-
ant drug trade, especially in the African-Ameri-
can communities. As executive director, Watson
used a telephone hot-line approach for anonymous
callers to inform police of drug trafficking "on the
streets." The program and Mrs. Watson were
hailed regionally and nationally for taking on the
drug problem in Boston's neighborhoods.

Doris Bunte, a tenants' rights activist during the Housing Authority Director
1960s and 1970s, and a former Housing Develop-
ment tenant, became director of the Boston Hous-
ing Authority in 1984.

Anna Faith Jones became the first African- Amer- Major Foundation Director
ican woman to head a major American founda-
tion when she was appointed director of The
Boston Foundation in 1985. Since her appoint-
ment The Boston Foundation has recommitted it-
self to aid for the disadvantaged. 31

Linkage to Neighborhood
Growth

The Organization for a New Equality (O.N.E.)
was founded in 1985 by Rev. Charles Stith, Senior
Pastor of Union United Methodist Church.
O.N.E. is a local and national vehicle for mount-
ing strategies to develop economic opportunity for
"people of color" and racial harmony in cities and
on college campuses across the country. In 1990,
after negotiating with the Massachusetts Bankers
Association (representing over 100 banks), Rev.
Stith, President of O.N.E., led the estabhshment
of a multimillion-dollar statewide program to cre-
ate revolving loan funds to increase affordable
housing, improve access to mortgages and bank-
ing services, and provide capital to entrepreneurs
in low-income and minority neighborhoods that
have been historically underserved by the banks.

Martha's Vineyard For more than 100 years the island of Martha's

Vineyard (seven miles off the southeast coast of
Massachusetts) has been an important summer-
time haven for Black Bostonians. In the late 1800s
Blacks first came to the island to work for whites
and some earned enough money to gain small
summer vacation homes for themselves. Shearer
Cottage was opened in Oak Bluffs at the turn of
the century — the island's first establishment that
allowed Blacks to rent. Since the 1950s the island
has attracted Blacks each summer from the entire
East Coast and Washington, D.C. Several gener-
ations of families, both famous and ordinary, as
summer vacationers and year-round residents have
turned the once-poor village of Oak Bluffs into a
Black mecca for educational, cultural, civic, and
social tradition for Blacks of all backgrounds. The
Martha's Vineyard NAACP, The Cottagers (a
Black women's civic and charitable group), and
the annual Oak Bluffs Labor Day weekend tennis
tournament has become institutions in this impor-
tant colony for Black Bostonians.

Organization for a
New Equality

Civil Rights

17th Century

Slavery Law in Massachusetts Massachusetts Bay and Plymouth were the first

colonies to authorize slavery through legislation as
part of the 1641 Body of Liberties, a mere three
years after the first Blacks arrived in Boston.

18th Century

First Anti-Slavery Treatise "The Selling of Joseph," a sermon by white cler-
gyman Samuel Sewall, first published in Boston in
1700, became the first public anti-slavery treatise.
Liberty, he wrote, being "The real value unto life;
none ought to part with it themselves or deprive
others of it but upon mature consideration." A
strong anti-slavery treatise for its time, Sewall's
writing provoked slaves in Boston to mount a de-
termined effort to obtain their freedom.

Black Population 1708-1752 Throughout the colonial era Boston contained the

largest number of Blacks in Massachusetts. The
flourishing slave trade and increased birthrate ex-
panded the Black population from 400 in 1708 to
1,374 in 1742. In 1708 there were 33 free Blacks
in Boston. In 1742 one-third of all Blacks in Mas-
sachusetts lived in Boston. In 1752 Blacks num-
bered 1,541, one-tenth of the population.

Boston Common "Out of In 1742, when whites feared uprisings against

Bounds" oppression from the heavy concentration of slaves

in Boston, the Boston Common was "out of
bounds" for Blacks and American Indians. The
Black community of the city fought this restric-
tion, but it was not until July 4, 1836 that they
were allowed to use the Common with whites.

Anti-slavery meeting on the Boston Common

The year 1773 saw increasing agitation among
Blacks in Boston and Massachusetts for an end to
slavery. On January 6, then in April, and again in
May, they sent petitions first to royal Governor
General Thomas Gage and next to the Massachu-
setts legislature, denouncing slavery as destructive
of natural rights and seeking the right to earn
money to purchase their freedom. Finally, in 1780
slavery was abolished in Massachusetts when a
Declaration of Rights was added to the state con-
stitution. In 1781, as a result of a court decision
in the case Commonwealth v. Jennison, slavery in
the state was declared unconstitutional.

African-Americans on the Boston Common

Slavery Abolished in
Massachusetts

CAUTION ! !

COLORED PEOPLE

OF BOSTON, ONE & ALL,

Ton are hereby respectfully CAUTIONED aBd
advised, to avoid coDversing witli the ^

Watchmen and Police Officers

of Boston,

For since the recent ORDER OF THE MAYOR &
ALiDli FTEN, they are empowered to act as

KIDNAPPERS

AND

Slave Calidheri,

And they hare already been actually einployed ^iM
KIDNAPPING, CATCHING, AND KEEPING
SL.ATES. Therefore, if you value y|Hir LIBERTY,
and the W^eifai^e of the Fugitives aimong you. Shun
them in ef^ery possible manner, as so mapy MOUJVJE^Si
on the traek of the most unfortunate of jour race.

Keep a Sharp Look Out for
KIDNAPPERS, and have
TOP EYE open.

APRIL 24, 1851.

19th Century

When a group of Black Bostonians founded the First Abolitionist Group

Massachusetts General Colored Association in
1826 to fight for an end to slavery, they became
Boston's primary abolition organization.

With his publication of Appeal to the Colored Cit- David Walker's Appeal

izens of the World, urging slaves to fight for their
freedom, David Walker created an influential piece
of anti-slavery literature that helped shape the
posture of Black militancy of the 1830s and be-
yond.

Hailed as America's first Black political writer. Early Political Writer

Maria W. Stewart, an early Boston activist, cham-
pioned women's rights and Black self-improve-
ment in a series of speeches and essays written
between 1831 and 1833. She was probably the first
Black American to lecture publicly in defense of
women's rights. Speaking from the pulpit of Bos-
ton's African Meeting House, she was a clear fore-
runner to generations of the most influential Black
activists.

While The Liberator newspaper (1831-1869), The Liberator

founded by the militant white abolitionist William
Lloyd Garrison, was an anti-slavery organ, it was
also a journal for Black Americans throughout
Boston and the East. The paper provided a net-
work with its listing of death notices and social
events, discussion of politics, and advertising of
employment/housing opportunities. The Libera-
tor even provided information on the types and
degree of discrimination a Black traveler might
expect to encounter.

Liberator masthead
37

New England
Anti-Slavery Society

The New England Anti-Slavery Society, successor
to the Massachusetts General Colored Associa-
tion, was founded at Boston's African Meeting
House in 1832, becoming the leading, most elo-
quent, most effective voice in the battle against
slavery.

Female Anti-Slavery Leader

Susan Paul of Boston, daughter of Rev. Thomas
Paul, served as a vice president of the Second An-
nual Anti-Slavery Convention of American
Women in Philadelphia in 1839.

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass gave his first anti-slavery Frederick Douglass

speech on Nantucket Island in August 1841, a
speech which propelled him into the anti-slavery
cause. He soon found his way to Boston where he
became a leader of the movement.

Charles Lenox Remond (1810-1873) was perhaps Charles Lenox Remond

the boldest agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slav-
ery Society and possibly the most eloquent of the
Black abolitionists of antebellum Boston. He had
a national and international reputation as an anti-
slavery leader, and was appointed as an American
delegate to the World Anti-Slavery Convention in
London in 1840. In 1842 he was the first of his
race to address the Massachusetts House of Rep-
resentatives, protesting segregated railroad accom-
modations in the state.

Born in Salem, Sarah Remond (1826-1894) was a
leading organizer of women for the Massachusetts
Anti-Slavery Society in the 1840s and 1850s. Pro-
testing segregation in churches, theatres, and other
public places, she won a civil court suit after being
ejected from the Howard Athenaeum in Boston,
which had advertised that for all performances
colored people would be admitted only to the gal-
lery.

Women's Anti-Slavery
Organizer

Lewis Hayden

In the decades prior to the Civil War, Blacks in
Boston were prominent in developing and operat-
ing one of the principal stations of the "Under-
ground Railroad" that helped escaped slaves from
the South find refuge in the North or in Canada.
From his home at 66 Phillips Street on Beacon
Hill (now a national historic site), Lewis Hayden
(1815-1889), the leading Black abolitionist in Bos-
ton, directed the secret operations of the "Under-
ground Railroad." More than one-fourth of all
fugitive slaves who passed through Boston were
hidden, fed, and clothed there by Hayden and his
wife Harriet. In May 1853 there were 13 fugitive
slaves under their roof.

In September 1855, after a long boycott of Black-
only schools led by William C. Nell and a petition
to the legislature that schools in Boston be deseg-
regated, Blacks in Boston were free to attend pre-
viously all-white schools.

20th Century

William Monroe Trotter's In 1901 William Monroe Trotter (1873-1934)

Equal Rights League founded the Boston Equal Rights League to push

for civil and human rights for Black people. The
League operated nine years before the establish-
ment of the NAACP (National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People).

Boston's Underground
Railroad

School Desegregation
in 1855

William E. B. DuBois (1868-1963), born in Great William E. B. DuBois

Barrington, Massachusetts, was the first African-
American to receive the Ph.D. degree from Har-
vard (1895). His thesis was on the African Slave
Trade. DuBois was influenced by Boston's fiery
and "radical" civil rights leader William Monroe
Trotter in the early 1900s and was a founder of
the NAACP in 1910.

The Boston Branch of the NAACP, the first offi- Oldest NAACP Branch

cial and now the oldest branch of the NAACP,
developed out of the Boston Committee to Ad-
vance the Cause of the Negro, established in 1910.
Gathering in 1912 at the Park Street Church, 56
Bostonians (Black and white) received the official
Branch charter which was inscribed with the state-
ment of purpose: "7b uplift the colored men and
women of this country by securing to them full
enjoyment of their rights as citizens, justice in all
courts, and equality of opportunity everywhere.''

In 1915 all of Boston's Black institutions, agen- "Birth of a Nation" Protest

cies, and community leaders united to protest the
showing of the film, "Birth of a Nation," at the
Tremont Theatre because the film portrayed south-
ern Blacks as depraved and glorified the Ku Klux
Klan. Despite the collective protest, the city al-
lowed the film to complete its scheduled run
through the summer. Six years later when the film
was scheduled for a rerun at the Shubert Theatre,
William Monroe Trotter and the Boston NAACP
forced the banning of the film with some 600
members of Boston's Black community attending
the hearing on the film.

Butler Wilson presided over the Boston Branch of NAACP President

the NAACP from 1916 to 1936, the longest pres- for 20 Years

idential tenure in its history.

Led by two Black doctors, W O. Taylor and Wil- Black Nurses Admitted

liam Worthy, a committee of Black Bostonians that to City Hospital

included Guardian editor William Monroe Trotter
successfully championed the cause of two Black
high school graduates seeking admission to the
nurses' training program at Boston's City Hospital
in 1929. With this action, the committee forced
the hospital to integrate its training program.

Florence LeSuerer

First Female President In 1948, when Florence LeSuerer was elected pres-

of NAACP Branch ident of Boston's branch of the NAACP, she be-

came the first woman in the country to head a
local NAACP chapter. She served as branch pres-
ident from 1948 to 1951.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., In April 1965 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a
Leads Rally graduate of Boston University School of Theology,

led a march from Roxbury to a rally on Boston
Common to protest the evils of school segregation
in Boston. Dr. King spoke at the State House
where he appealed to the Massachusetts legisla-
ture to end discrimination in housing and de facto
segregation in Boston's schools. In June the legis-
lature passed The Racial Imbalance Act requiring
school desegregation in Boston.

Martin Luther King, Jr., in Boston,
April 1965

Dr. King leading march down Columbus Avenue to the Boston Common

School Desegregation Suit In 1972 a suit was filed by the Boston Branch

NAACP against the Boston School Committee for
maintaining a segregated school district and low
quality education for its mostly Black student
population. When Federal Court Judge W. Arthur
Garrity, Jr., ordered a school desegregation plan
in Boston in June 1974, a class of Black parent
plaintiffs and the Boston Branch NAACP won a
major victory.

Firefighters Association

The Vulcans, Boston's African-American fire-
fighters' association, was formed in 1972. At that
time there had been only 17 Black and Hispanic
firemen in the history of the city's fire department.
When the Vulcans filed a court suit against the
city of Boston for discrimination in hiring prac-
tices, the city admitted to the charges. Today there
are more than 400 African- American firefighters
in the force of 2,000.

Opening Doors
of Opportunity

Several organizations have strong track records of
service to the African-American community. Three
such organizations have worked for more than 20
years to open doors of opportunity for Blacks: the
Contractors Association of Boston (CAB); the
Black Patrolmen's Association, currently known as
MAMLEO (the Massachusetts Association of
Afro-American Law Enforcement Organizations);
and the Vietnam Veterans Benefits Clearinghouse,
founded by Ralph Cooper and Ron Armstead.

Housing Discrimination
Victories

In 1989 the Boston Branch of the NAACP won
two major lawsuits for housing discrimination.
Both cases were unique because they were the "first
of their kind" in the country to award individuals
monetary compensation, according to Attorney
Dianne Wilkerson, the NAACP Housing Commit-
tee Chairperson. The first case filed in 1978 against
the U.S. Office of Housing and Urban Develop-
ment (HUD) took 11 years to move through the
courts. The court ruled that HUD failed in its sta-
tutory duty to monitor federal funds and in doing
so contributed to discriminatory practices against
Black residents in Boston. This ruling brought
sweeping institutional changes in federal housing
expenditures and requires monitoring and enforce-
ment by the Boston Fair Housing Commission.

The second case was filed in May 1988 against the u . ,^

^ „ ^ ,. ^ ...... . Housing Discrimination

Boston Housing Authority for discrimination in its Victories

selection policy of segregating prospective tenants
who were Black, Hispanic, and Asian-American,
by "systematically steering hundreds of Black
families away from predominantly white housing
projects in Charlestown, South Boston, and East
Boston." In addition to the monetary compensa-
tion afforded to the victims, plaintiffs not already
in public housing will get first choice of vacancies.
The NAACP victory also included the creation of
a Community Benefits Fund, financed at half a
million dollars, to develop projects for integrated
housing in Boston.

Education

18th Century

The Fight for
School Equality

In 1787 Primus Hall and other Black leaders pe-
titioned the Massachusetts legislature for equal
school facilities for Black children.

Primus Hall's School

A school for Black children was begun on Beacon
Hill in the home of Primus Hall in 1798.

19th Century

First Black Public School

In 1808 the first "public" school for Boston's Af-
rican-American children was opened in the base-
ment of the African Meeting House on Beacon
Hill. Prince Saunders, an African-American
teacher at the African Meeting House school, per-
suaded white businessman Abiel Smith to donate
securities in his will worth about $5,000 to the
Boston School Committee for the education of
Boston's Black children.

Adelphic Union Library
Association

Boston's early 19th-century Black community was
concerned with education and cultural needs. In
1838 the Adelphic Union Library Association was
formed to encourage intellectual debates and off"er
lectures. At a time when women were generally
excluded from public lectures, the Adelphic Union
opened its meetings to all regardless of color or
sex.

Cyrus Foster,
"griot" of Boston

Cyrus Foster was the "griot" (storyteller) of Bos-
ton in the 19th century, known for his tales of New
England Blacks during the Revolutionary War and
early period of America's nationhood. A Revolu-
tionary War veteran, Foster spent much of his time

Smith School

CYRUS FOSIER^S

EVENING OF JANUARY 30th, 1867.

?z::::2::ir8:::;::::S Tickets, 25cts.

Cyrus Foster

Cyrus Foster walking the streets and talking about his experi-

"griot" of Boston ences. As a community oral historian, he was re-

spected for his knowledge and ability to entertain
the young and old.

Benjamin and Sarah Benjamin Roberts sued the Boston School Com-

Roberts Lawsuit mittee in 1849 for denying his daughter Sarah ad-

mission to an all-white Boston school. His action
rallied school integration forces in the early 1850s,
leading to the first official school desegregation in
Boston in 1855. At that time the Massachusetts
legislature passed a bill closing the all-Black Smith
School. The action came after a long boycott of
Black-only schools led by William C. Nell. This
represented a victory in the struggle for equal
school access waged by Boston's Black community
beginning in 1834.

First Black Harvard Richard Theodore Greener, class of 1870, was the

College Graduate first Black to graduate from Harvard College. He il

became a professor of mental and moral philoso-
phy at the University of South Carolina and U.S.
Consul at Vladivostok during the Russo-Japanese
War. i

Pioneer Historian George Washington Williams (1849-1891) was a

and Minister graduate of Newton Theological Seminary (1874)

and the Pastor of Boston's Twelfth Baptist Church
from 1874-1876. After seven years of research he
authored A History of the Negro Race in America
from 1619 to 1880: Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers
and as Citizens. The work in two volumes of over
500 pages each was an extraordinary historiogra-
phy, the first and most important of its time. Dur-
ing the time he was pastor of Twelfth Baptist he
wrote The History of Twelfth Baptist Church from
1840-1874.

The first African-American to serve on the Boston
School Committee was Dr. James T. Still, who was
elected in 1875. He served for one year. Dr. Sam-
uel E. Courtney, a South End physician, was the
second Black person to serve on the Boston School
Committee. In 1897 he was elected at-large to a
three-year term and served until 1901.

First Elected to Boston
School Committee

Parker Bailey

Parker Bailey (Class of 1877) and Clement Mor-
gan (Class of 1886) were the first Black graduates
of the Boston Latin School. Both went on to Har-
vard College. Bailey pursued a lifetime of teach-
ing at the M Street High School in Washington,
D.C. Morgan graduated from Harvard Law School
and served as the first Black elected to the Com-
mon Council of Cambridge in 1898.

The first Black teacher in the Boston Public First Black Teacher

Schools is believed to have been Harriet L. Smith,
who taught from 1890 (at the Sharp School on
Beacon Hill) to 1917 (at the Bowdoin School on
Beacon Hill). Her sister, Elizabeth N. Smith,
taught from 1894-1896. Other Black teachers dur-
ing the early 1900s were Eleanor A. Smith,
Blanche V. Smith, Mary E. Smith, Jacqueline
Carroll, and lola D. Yates.

In 1895 Boston's William Monroe Trotter became Harvard Phi Beta Kappa

the first Black to receive a Phi Beta Kappa key
from Harvard University.

Early Boston
Latin Graduates

20th Century

George W. Forbes, Librarian George W. Forbes (1864-1927) served as reference

librarian from 1896 to 1927 in the West End
Branch of the Boston Public Library, the city's
busiest branch at the time. While the West End
Beacon Hill neighborhood was a predominantly
Black neighborhood during the late 1890s, a Jew-
ish population predominated by 1910. On Forbes's
death, The Jewish Daily Forward paid tribute to
the librarian for his "knowledge and intelligence
and good human heart [which] helped tens and
hundreds of intelligent Jews to get on their feet."
See p. 116 for Forbes's career in journaUsm prior
to his Hbrary service.

Brighton High Valedictorian In 1911 an African-American girl, F. Marion

Reed, was valedictorian of her class at Brighton
High School. With an overall average of 95 for
her four years of high school study, she was in the
top ten of academically achieving students out of
1,291 graduates from Boston high schools in 1911.

First Black School Principal Maria L. Baldwin of Cambridge became the first

Black school principal in Massachusetts when she
was appointed to head the Agassiz School in
Cambridge in 1899. She remained in the position
until 1922.

Racist Song Removed In 1915 the Boston Branch NAACP won a victory

when it persuaded the Boston School Committee
to withdraw from the schools the book Forty Best
Songs. The local NAACP objected to the words
"darky," "nigger," and "massa" in the songs, and
said in its petition to the committee that "our
[Black] children have returned home from school
broken-hearted that these songs are sung and that
white children had jeered them."

Wilhelmina Crosson, one of the first African-
American teachers in the Boston Public Schools
(1923-1949), started her career at the Hancock
School in the North End. Working in the Italian-
American community with first-generation Italian
children, she instituted the first remedial reading
program in Boston, opening the first center at the
Paul Revere School in the North End.

Pioneering Teacher
of Reading

Maria Baldwin

A group of Black women led by Wilhelmina Cros- Aristo Club

son started the Aristo Club in 1924 to teach Afri-
can-American history in the Boston schools and
Black community and to boost educational and
cultural opportunities for Boston's Black youth. In
1926 the Club sponsored the first official Negro
History Week program in Boston. Decade after
decade up through the 1970s, the Aristo Club pro-
vided pageants, musicals, and Black history ex-
hibits each February to raise money for its
scholarship program.

Aristo Club members at 1963 Negro History Week exhibit

Black Heritage Trail

1. African Meeting House
2-6. Smitli Court Residences

7. Abiel Smith School

8. George Middleton House

9. Robert Gould Shaw and
54th Regiment Memorial

10. Phillips School

11. John J. Smith House

12. Charles Street Meeting House

13. Lewis Hayden House

14. Coburn's Gaming House

In December 1935 Victor Bynoe won first place Prize Winning Orator

(and $50) in the annual public speaking contest at
Northeastern University.

The Boston Branch of the NAACP founded its
Educational Counseling Committee in 1948 to
provide higher education information and gui-
dance to Black young people in Boston high
schools. Twenty years later in 1968 the Committee
counseled over 340 students and awarded $20,000
in direct college aid to 60 young scholars.

The Black Heritage Trail on Beacon Hill in Boston Black Heritage Trail

is a walking tour which explores the history of the
city's 19th-century African-American community.
The tour was started in 1963 as an informal walk-
ing tour of some 10 sites by J. Marcus Mitchell,
the first curator of the Museum of Negro History
(now the Museum of Afro-American History). In
1968 the tour was formally presented in a bro-
chure designed and written by Gaunzetta and J.
Marcus Mitchell and was called The Black Heri-
tage Trail, starting at the Charles Street Meeting
House (then the name of the Museum). Today the
Trail consists of some 14 sites commencing at the
African Meeting House: Smith Court residences,
Abiel Smith School, George Middleton House,
Robert Gould Shaw and 54th Massachusetts Reg-
iment memorial, Phillips School, John J. Smith
House, Charles Street Meeting House, Lewis Hay-
den House, and Coburn's Gaming House. Tours
may be arranged by calling the National Park Ser-
vice in Boston.

On June 4, 1963 the Education Committee of
Boston's NAACP Branch called for a public hear-
ing on de facto segregation in the city's public
schools. At a June 11 hearing the committee pre-
sented its case on behalf of Black students.

Dr. Benjamin Quarles, born in Boston in 1904 and Dr. Benjamin Quarles,

a graduate of English High School, became an Historian
eminent 20th-century African- American historian.
He is the author of The Negro in the Making of
America, Black Abolitionists, Lincoln and the
Negro, The Negro in the American Revolution,

NAACP Educational
Counseling Committee

De Facto
Segregation Hearing

^ „ . . ^ , and a definitive study of Frederick Douglass. He

Dr. Beniamin Quarles, ^„ r,.

Historian Professor Emeritus of history at Morgan

State College in Baltimore.

Racial Imbalance In July 1964 an advisory committee to the State

in Schools Board of Education, chaired by Dr. Owen B.

Kiernan, reported that segregation existed in 78
percent of the schools in Massachusetts and that
racial imbalance was detrimental to sound educa-
tion in six specific ways, including "serious con-
flict with the American creed of equal
opportunity."

Rev. Vernon Carter's In 1965 Rev. Vernon Carter, minister of the All

Vigil Saints Lutheran Church in Boston's South End in

the 1950s and 1960s, conducted a personal 114-
day vigil/march in front of the Boston School
Committee Headquarters to protest racial imbal-
ance in the Boston schools.

Rev. Vernon Carter
54

Ellen S. Jackson, founder of Operation Exodus

The Black Educators Alliance of Massachusetts
(BEAM), originally called the Massachusetts Ne-
gro Educators Association, was founded in 1965.
Led by the late Rollins Griffith, and including
John D. O'Bryant, Gerry Hill, Barbara Jackson,
and Jean McGuire, it was the first professional as-
sociation of Black educators in Massachusetts.
Now 25 years old, BEAM continues to work on
educational issues and practices, sponsor work-
shops, collaborate with community agencies, and
raise money for Black student college scholar-
ships.

Black Educators Alliance
of Massachusetts

The Massachusetts Racial Imbalance Act, spear- Racial Imbalance Act

headed by Boston's African-American commu-
nity, was passed in 1965, making Massachusetts
the first state in the nation to outlaw de facto seg-
regation in a school district.

Ellen Swepson Jackson was founder and executive Operation Exodus

director of Operation Exodus, a privately initiated
inner-city busing program that began in 1965 to
help Black students living near substandard
schools to attend "better" schools in other gener-
ally all-white neighborhoods in Boston.

In another approach to upgrading education for Metropolitan Council for

Boston's Black students, the Metropolitan Council Educational Opportunity

for Educational Opportunity (METCO) was
founded in 1966, and 219 Boston students began
attending school in seven suburban communities
(Newton, Brookline, Wellesley, Lexington, Lin-

Metropolitan Council for
Educational Opportunity

coin, Arlington, and Braintree). Today there are
3,200 METCO students from Boston's Black
neighborhoods attending school in 34 suburban
school districts. METCO is the only program of
its kind in the United States.

First Black on Board of
Education

Judge Richard Banks was the first African-Amer-
ican to serve on the State Board of Education in
Massachusetts from 1966 to 1973.

First School Principal

The first African- American to be appointed as a
school principal in the Boston Public Schools was
Gladys Wood. Appointed in 1966 to administer
the Dearborn district (composed of three elemen-
tary schools), she then moved into the Tileston
district and to the Chittick School, serving for 15
years as a Boston school administrator.

Student Unions

Beginning in the fall of 1968, Black student unions
were formed in most Boston high schools to de-
fend the rights of Black students and to push for
educational reform in Boston.

Ruth M. Batson
Educational Foundation

The Ruth M. Batson Educational Foundation was
established in 1969 "to help improve the quality
of education and to expand educational oppor-
tunities for those who have been relegated to a dis-
advantaged category because of discrimination."
In its first 20 years the Foundation made over 160
grants totaling nearly $130,000 to Black college
students and Black institutions and community
groups.

Ruth M. Batson (center) with Boston University medical
students

Rollins Griffith (left) in 1972 photo with John O'Bryant, first
African-American elected to the Boston School Committee in
the 20th century

Rollins Griffith (1925-1978) was the first African- Rollins Griffith

American to assume the position of Assistant Su-
perintendent of Schools in Boston with his ap-
pointment in 1970.

Roxbury Community College was established in
1973 and its new permanent campus was opened
at New Dudley Street and Columbus Avenue to
serve the higher education needs of Blacks, His-
panics, and others who previously did not have
access to the kind of post-secondary schooling that
offered preparation for college or for the work-
place.

The first African-American Library Commissioner Library Commissioners

for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was Dr.
Adelaide Cromwell Gulliver, who was appointed
in 1974. The second to serve on the Commission
was Robert C. Hayden from 1978 to 1980.

Roxbury Community
College

Robert C. Hayden has been the leading researcher
and writer of Boston African-American history for
over 20 years. From 1974-1983 he wrote a weekly
column entitled "Boston's Black History" for The
Bay State Banner newspaper. His other works in-
clude Faith, Culture and Leadership: A History of
the Black Church in Boston; Boston's NAACP
History - 1910 to 1982; The African Meeting
House in Boston: A Celebration of History; Sing-
ing for All People; Roland Hayes — A Biography;
and A History of METCO: Suburban Education
for Boston's Urban Students (co-authored with
Ruth M. Batson). Hayden is known nationally for
his books entitled Seven Black American Scien-
tists, Eight Black American Inventors, and Nine
Black American Doctors.

Paige Academy In 1975 Angela Paige Cook with her husband Jo-

seph Cook founded Paige Academy in the High-
land Park section of Roxbury. The academy has
become a nationally recognized private pre-school
and elementary school with the arts and sciences
as vital components of the curriculum. As a
unique community institution specializing in early
childhood care and education, it is one of the
community agencies participating in Project
AFRIC (Advancement for Families Rich in Chil-
dren). AFRIC targets African-American families
who will receive services in health care, nutrition,
child care, and adult education and training un-
der a five-year demonstration project funded by
the federal Comprehensive Child Development
Act.

In 1977 John O'Bryant was elected to Boston
School Committee, becoming the first African-
American elected to serve on the Committee in the
20th century. In 1989 he was elected to his seventh
two-year term, and in 1991 he became president
of that body for the second time.

First African-American Dean Hubert (Hubie) Jones became the first African-
at B.U. American dean at Boston University when he was

appointed to head the School of Social Work in
1977. Since 1980 he has served also as a distin-
guished social commentator on public affairs every
Sunday morning on the Channel 5 TV program,
"Five on Five."

Robert C. Hayden,
Author/Historian

Veteran School
Committeeman

Appointed to the position in 1984 and reap- Library Trustee

pointed in 1990, Berthe M. Gaines is the first Af-
rican-American woman to serve as a trustee of the
Boston Public Library and only the fourth woman
to serve in the history of the Library, which was
established in 1848. Her appointment followed a
time of fiscal crisis for the city (1981-1984) when
she was actively involved in SAVE OUR LI-
BRARIES, a citywide multi-racial, multi-ethnic,
multi-cultural group of men and women commit-
ted to keeping neighborhood libraries open.

In 1985 Dr. Laval S. Wilson became the first Af- First African-American

rican-American to hold the position of Superin- Superintendent
tendent of the Boston Public Schools in the history
of the 354-year-old school system. He served as
superintendent for five years, one of the longest
tenures for an urban school superintendent.

Dr. Franklyn Jenifer was appointed Chancellor of Chancellor of

Higher Education in Massachusetts in 1986 by Higher Education

Governor Michael Dukakis, becoming the first
African-American to hold this position. In 1990
he became president of Howard University in
Washington, D.C.

Eyes on the Prize — America's Civil Rights Years
1954-1965, a television mini-series produced by
Henry Hampton, President of Blackside, Inc., a
film production company in Boston, was seen by
over 20 million national viewers in 1987. This story
of the modern civil rights movement won several
prestigious awards, among them, "Program of the
Year" — TV Critics Association; Best Documen-
tary by TV Guide; Best of Festival by American
Film and Video Festival; Broadcast Journalism's
Most Prestigious Award; The Dupont-Columbia
Gold Baton Award; and an Emmy from the Na-
tional Academy of TV Arts and Sciences. In 1990,
after two more years of archival film research and
oral history, a second TV series. Eyes on the Prize
II — America at the Racial Crossroads 1965-1985,
made its debut on National Public Television.

Eyes on the Prize

Henry Hampton

Tutor Sam Perry at the Boston Public Library

Muriel Snowden While Muriel Snowden (1916-1988) was still alive,

International High School the Boston School Committee renamed Copley

Square High School, The Muriel Snowden Inter-
national High School, in recognition of Mrs.
Snowden's efforts to foster the study of other cul-
tures and foreign languages among urban youth
and for co-founding and directing Freedom House
in Boston (with her husband, Otto) from 1949-
1984.

Master Tutor For 30 years Samuel P. Perry, Jr., has spent his

days and nights tutoring boys and girls in all sub-
jects, preparing them for college. Almost any late
afternoon you can see this quiet whirlwind of a
Black man rushing back and forth among a half
dozen Black students in Bates Hall, the huge re-
search/reading room of the Boston Public Library.
On Saturdays he tutors at the Dudley Branch Li-
brary. More than 600 students have passed through
his tutelage — seven have become doctors, five are
engineers, and three have MB As. His students
have gone on to Vassar, Harvard, MIT, and Dart-
mouth.

Creative Arts

18th Century

Lucy Terry Prince (c. 1733-1821), sometimes re- First Poet

f erred to as America's first Black poet, was a

Massachusetts storyteller whose poem "The Bar's

Fight" was written in 1746 while she was still a

slave.

Phillis Wheatley, a slave in Boston who gained her Phillis Wheatley

freedom in 1772, became the first African-Ameri-
can to publish a book of poetry, Poems on Var-
ious Subjects, Religious and Moral.

18th-century Artist

Early artist Scipio Moorhead (c. 1773-?) is docu-
mented primarily in a poem by the slave poet
Phillis Wheatley entitled "To S.M., a Young Af-
rican Painter, on Seeing His Works." In a penciled
note of the 1773 edition of her Poems on Various
Subjects, Religious and Moral, she identifies S.M.
as "Scipio Moorhead, a Negro servant to Rev.
John Moorhead of Boston." Rev. Moorhead's wife
was an art teacher. It is possible that Moorhead
engraved the unsigned portrait of Phillis Wheat-
ley, used as a frontispiece for several of her poetry
publications.

19th Century

Histrionic Club

The Histrionic Club, the first Black drama group
in Boston, was founded in the late 1840s. Many
of the plays it produced were written by William
C. Nell.

First Published Novelist

William Wells Brown, a novelist, playwright, his-
torian, essayist, lecturer, physician, and abolition-
ist, spent most of his life and pubhshed most of
his work in Boston. He is espcially noted for Clo-
tel: or The President's Daughter: A Narrative of
Slave Life in the United States (1853), the first
published novel written by an African-American.

Renowned Artist

In the mid- 19th century Edward M. Bannister be-
came one of the earliest Black artists in Boston to
win widespread praise for his work. His crayon
portraits were noted for their excellence. He later
moved to Providence, Rhode Island, where he be-
came the principal founder of the Providence Art
Club.

19th-century Guitarist

James Gloucester Demarest was a 19th-century
musician who taught the guitar and violin in Bos-
ton and also composed for these instruments.

Musical Composer

Henry F. Williams, who was born in Boston in
1813, was an outstanding musician and composer
for the violin and cornet, as well as the double
bass, the viola, the violoncello, the baritone, the
trombone, the tuba, and the pianoforte. He also
arranged music for the Gilmore Band in Boston
and was manager of the Boston Cadet Band.

Edmonia Lewis (1845-1890) was America's first 19th-century Sculptor

Black artist recognized for her reliefs and busts of
great anti-slavery leaders and for Forever Free, a
composition of marble (completed in 1867) show-
ing a man and woman overcome with emotion on
hearing news of their emancipation from slavery.
Lewis began her art career in Boston between 1862
and 1865 where she studied under Edmund Brack-
ett and did a bust of Colonel Robert Gould Shaw,
the Commander of the first Black regiment orga-
nized in Massachusetts during the Civil War.
Working from her studio at 89 Tremont Street, she
created sculptures of Boston military heroes and
abolitionists which were sold at the Soldier's Re-
lief Fair to raise monies for the Civil War veterans'
relief fund.

The Progressive Musical Union, an organization Progressive Musical Union
of Black musicians, sponsored its first public con-
cert on March 9, 1875.

Rachel M. Washington was the first African-
American to graduate from the New England
Conservatory of Music in the year 1876. She
served as organist and choir director at Twelfth
Baptist Church in the latter half of the 19th cen-
tury and was a leading music teacher in Boston's
Black community.

In 1885 James Monroe Trotter published a widely James Monroe Trotter

acclaimed book, Music and Some Highly Musical
People, a tribute to some 200 Black groups and
individuals for their musical achievement in Bos-
ton and the United States during the 1800s.

20th Century

Pauline Hopkins, a Black high school student in Protest Writer

Boston, won the first prize of "ten dollars in gold,"
6ffered by the Congregational Publishing Society
of Boston in 1895 for her essay on the "Evils of
Intemperance and Their Remedies." She went on
to become a writer for the Colored American
Magazine. In the early 1900s her articles and nov-
els were important protest literature, in which she
addressed problems and issues on race relations
"thought to be unspeakable" and not touched by
other journals.

First Graduate,
New England
Conservatory of Music

Opera Producer

Theodore Drury, who had earlier produced operas
with Black casts in New York City, organized and
trained a Black company in Boston in the early
years of the 20th century. In 1907 "Aida" and a
scene from "Carmen" were produced, and "Faust"
and "Cavalleria Rusticana" in the following year.

Literary Giant

William Stanley Braithwaite (1878-1962) of Bos-
ton was a significant force in the development of
creative American literature from 1906 to 1936. He
was a poet, journalist, essayist, and pioneering
anthologist of American poetry, writing some 31
books of poetry and prose. In 1918 he received
the coveted Spingarn Medal from the NAACP for
his many achievements.

Boston Negro Arts Club

The Boston Negro Arts Club was formed in 1907
and its first exhibition was held the same year.

Plea for Negro Soldiers

Charles Frederick White, who studied at Boston
Latin School, published Plea for the Negro Sol-
diers, and One Hundred Other Poems in 1908.

Dorothy West signing copies of The Living Is Easy

Meta Warwick Fuller, who lived in Framingham, Internationally Recognized
Massachusetts, from 1909 until her death in 1968, Sculptor
was widely acclaimed for her sculpture. Her
2 sculptures of human figures were exhibited both
locally and nationally.

Dorothy West, born in 1910 and raised in Boston, 20th-century Novelist

became a leading novelist, short-story writer, edi-
tor, and columnist. Her novel The Living Is Easy
(about growing up Black in Boston) was published
in 1948; currently she writes a column for the
Vineyard Gazette on Martha's Vineyard Island.

Roland Hayes, who gained national and interna- Roland Hayes,

tional fame as a classical concert artist, launched Vocal Artist

his career in Boston's Symphony Hall in 1917. He
lived, studied, and worked in Boston and Brook-
Hne, Massachusetts, from 1912 until his death in
1977. In 1921 the noted tenor gave a command
performance before the King and Queen of Eng-
land at Buckingham Palace. He pioneered in
bringing African-American religious folk-songs
(the spirituals) to the American and world concert
stage.

Roland Hayes accompanied by Reginald Boardman

Allan Rohan Crite

Ancrum School of Music

The Ancrum School of Music operated for over
three decades in the early 1900s at 74 W. Rutland
Square. It was established and directed by Estelle
A. Forster, an early Black graduate of the New
England Conservatory of Music. She advertised
"Courses in Piano, Organ, Viola, Voice, Flute,
Brass and Wind Instruments, Harmony, Solfeg-
gio, Theory and all musical subjects. Excellent
Facility. Two Dormitories and Cafeteria. "

Theater Pioneer

Ralf Coleman, actor, writer, director, manager,
and producer of numerous stage hits, was a major
Black theater pioneer in New England between the
two world wars. He held many important theater
posts, including director of the Negro Federal
Theatre of Massachusetts from 1934 to 1939 and
Executive Director of The Negro Repertory Thea-
tre of Boston.

The Academy of Musical Arts, founded by Anna
Bobbitt Gardner, has been providing music les-
sons in Boston for over 65 years. The Academy
(originally called Pianoforte Studio) was started in
i the basement of her home on Claremont Park.
When the school moved to its present site on Co-
t lumbus Avenue, it also had satellite schools of
1 music in Cambridge, West Medford, and West
Newton.

Academy of Musical Arts

In February 1927 the Boston Stage Society, an af-
filiate of the Ford Hall Forum, presented the first
Negro play to gain a wide audience in Boston,
"The Rider of Dreams," by Ridley Torrence.

"Rider of Dreams"

Stanley E. Brown (1902-1977) was a nationally
known dancer and dance instructor in Boston
from 1929 to 1977. Founder of the Stanley Brown
Dance Studio, he trained and coached hundreds
i of professionals. "Sugar Ray" Robinson took tap
lessons from Brown as did Cab Calloway, Diana
Ross, and Lola Falana. In addition to tap dance,
he taught ballet, marches, and ballroom dancing.
"As a dancer, he was one of the last of our ora-
cles. When dancers wanted to know something,
they went to Stanley before they went to a book,"
said singer Mae Arnette in 1977.

Nationally Known Dancer

For over 60 years Rebecca Ellastine Lee Broadnax
(1893-1987) was a renowned voice and piano
teacher in greater Boston. For teenagers she
founded the Cantemus Club in 1934, a group of
24 students who presented concerts and recitals in
Boston and throughout New England until 1952.
She organized the L'Africaine Singers, a choral
ensemble of aduh professionals. She directed jun-
ior senior and childrpn'"; rhnir*; at varTnii<s
churches and community agencies.

Renowned Voice and
Piano Teacher

Allan Rohan Crite (1910- ) is Boston's most dis-
tinguished Black artist and art historian, noted for
an eclectic range of subjects — from religious
themes to neighborhood scenes. His religious art-
work can be seen in the Church of St. Augustine
and St. Martin on Lenox Street in lower Roxbury.
His views of Blacks in an urban setting, Crite says,
"present [people] in an ordinary light, persons en-

Allan Rohan Crite

A •• 1- ^ joying the usual pleasures of life with its mixtures

Allan Rohan Crite /, , , . „ ^ . , , ,

of both sorrows and joys. Crite s works have been

exhibited throughout the United States and Eu-
rope and are in the permanent collections of the
Boston Museum of Fine Arts, The Boston Public
Library, and Boston Athenaeum. His illustrated
books, including The Christmas Message in Pic-
tures and Some of the Colored Peoples of God,
are collector's items.

Legendary Jazz Pianist Sabby Lewis has become a legendary jazz pianist

and band leader in Boston. He organized his first
band in Boston in 1936. In 1942 his musical talent
was recognized when he was chosen to perform a
Sunday-night NBC radio broadcast. In the 1950s
and 1960s he played on Broadway in New York
City and at leading clubs in New York and Boston

— in Boston at the Savoy (where he first intro-
duced jazz for listening in 1940), the Hi-Hat, and
at Wally's Paradise. For decades Sabby Lewis's
bands played for ballroom dances all over New
England. At age 75 Mr. Lewis is still at the piano

— more recently at the Westin Hotel and in The
Lounge at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Boston.

Sabby Lewis

James Henderson (far right) with theater group

Born in Roxbury in 1900, Mildred Davenport be- Trailblazing Dancer

came a trailblazing dancer and renowned dance
instructor. Her first career was in show business.
In 1938 she danced her interpretation of the Af-
rican-American spirituals with the Boston Pops.
She appeared on Broadway with such reviews as
"Blackbirds" and "Flying Colors" and danced with
white performers such as Imogene Coca and Clif-
ton Webb. For more than five years she toured in
the "Chocolate Revue" in New York, Baltimore,
and Washington, D.C. With her dancing career
behind her, she served as an officer in the Wom-
en's Army Corps (WAC) during World War II.
From 1947 to 1968 she worked for the Massachu-
setts Commission Against Discrimination.

James Henderson (1894-1979) was a pioneering Pioneering Playwright

actor and developer of the Black theater in Boston
during the first half of the 20th century. As a play-
wright, he toured New England with his Black
theater groups.

For more than 40 years Vernon F. Blackman was
a significant force in the theater. Beginning his
stage career with the Little Theater Players, he
founded the People's Theater Company of Cam-
bridge and the Theater Company of Boston. From
the 1950s until his death in 1990, Blackman was
an instructor and mentor to Blacks in the theater.
He appeared in the Theater Company of Boston's
1964 production of "In the Jungle of the Cities"
and in "Something about the Blues," a 1979 TV
drama shown nationally on PBS. He became di-
rector of drama at the Elma Lewis School of Fine
Arts in 1968, and for the next 21 Christmas sea-
sons he directed the School's production of "Black
Nativity."

Tap King Boston born and raised, Jimmy Slyde has gained

national and international fame as a tap dancer in
films and concerts. Studying dance with Stanley
Brown and Mildred Davenport in Boston, he
started his early career in the city's vaudeville,
theaters, and nightclubs — the RKO, the Old
Howard, and the Frolic in Revere. His dance ca-
reer spans more than 40 years and has included
performances with Judy Garland in the film, "A
Star is Born"; in the Berlin Jazz Festival in 1966;
and with Gregory Hines and the late Sammy
Davis, Jr., in "Tap." During the past ten years he
has been teaching tap dancing in Europe.

Elma Lewis School The Elma Lewis School was established in 1950 to

give expert training in the arts to children, youth,
and adults. Its students have performed on Broad-
way and in symphony orchestras. During its 40
years of existence, the School has been producing
professional artists and changing the quality of life
for its community and students. Under the artistic
direction of Elma Lewis, today it continues as the
teaching arm of the National Center of African-
American artists. The Center was founded in 1978
in Boston to compile, interpret, and disseminate
the culture of African-American people as defined
by their art product. It has become an institution
for understanding the culture and visual arts her-
itage of Africans and people of African descent
throughout the world.

Actor, Playwright,
Producer and
Drama Teacher

Roy Haynes, drummer

First with Boston Symphony

The first African-American to play with the Bos-
ton Symphony Orchestra was bass player Ortiz
Walton in the late 1950s.

Internationally Known
Drummer

Roy Haynes, a Roxbury native, is a nationally
known drummer and has played a significant role
in the changing sound of jazz in a career that en-
compasses several eras from the bebop of Charlie
Parker and Thelonius Monk to Chick Corea's
avant-fusion.

Boston Afro-American
Artists, Inc.

The Boston Afro-American Artists, Inc. (BAAA)
— (formerly The Boston Negro Artists Associa-
tion) — was organized in 1963 by J. Marcus
Mitchell and Calvin Burnett to stimulate the de-
velopment of and appreciation for the visual arts
within the Black community. Incorporated in 1966,
the BAAA developed the first viable association
for both amateur and professional artists in the
Boston area. Its "Sunday in the Park" show has
become a popular community event each year
providing Black artists a marketplace in which to
exhibit and sell their work.

I Art historian Edmund B. Gaither, curator and di- Art Historian

rector of the Museum of the National Center of
Afro-American Artists, has been a leading
spokesman for the Black artist in Boston for over
25 years. He is internationally known as an advo-

Jcate of African-American visual artists and as a
contributor to the understanding and appreciation
^1 of the global heritage of Black people. A consul-
I tant to the Museum of Fine Arts, he is also co-
/' founder of the African-American Museums As-
i ; sociation.

"Black Nativity," a folk-song rendering of the "Black Nativity"

Christian story based on Langston Hughes's gos-
pel song-play about the birth of Christ, has be-
come an annual tradition in Boston since 1969.
First presented in the Elma Lewis School of Fine

1 Arts, it has attracted a wider audience in its per-
formances on stage at Northeastern University and

I most recently at the Opera House in Boston.
Members of an all-Black professional cast under
the musical direction of John Andrew Ross wed
their talents with the voices of children as young
as five, appearing on stage for the first time.

Ann Hobson Pilot is the principal harpist in the Principal Harpist in BSO

Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO). As the only
African- American in the BSO for over 20 years,
she started as a second harpist in 1969, moved to
associate harpist and then to principal harpist in
1980. Nationally she is the only principal African-
American musician of a major symphony orches-
tra.

The Kuumba Singers of Harvard and Radcliffe The Kuumba Singers

have become a prominent fixture in the local mus-
ical world during the past 20 years. Established in
1970 to give Black students at the Ivy League
schools an opportunity to celebrate their culture,
the Kuumba Singers off"er a unique form of Afri-
can-American spirituals, jazz, master choral
works, poetry, and African chants. Robert Win-
frey, musical director of the group since 1973, says
he takes pride in the Singers for their music and,
beyond that, for their skill as organizers who ne-
gotiate their own engagement contracts and plan
nationwide tours.

T. J. Anderson, composer

T. J. Anderson,
Composer

T. J. Anderson, who served as Chairman of the

Department of Music and is currently the Austin
Fletcher Professor of Music at Tufts University, is
a leading 20th-century composer. He is recognized
for his orchestration of Scott Joplin's opera, Tree-
monisha, which premiered in Atlanta in 1972. He
has ser\ed on the Massachusetts Council on the
Arts and Humanities.

Superstar Singer

Dorchester's own Donna Summer revolutionized
the music industry's disco craze with the release
of her "mega-hit," "Love to Love You, Baby," in
1977.

Master Artists
in Residency

The African-American Master Artists in Resi-
dency Program (AAMARP) at Northeastern Uni-
versity was established in 1977 by renowned artist
and professor Dana Chandler. AAMARP has
been dedicated to providing its constituencies with
the best aesthetic presentations from the widest
spectrum of artists available. Its studios and gal-
leries have provided spaces for dozens of African,
Asian, Hispanic, European, and Native American
artists and exhibits.

Donna Summer

Among the leading 20th-century Black artists Major 20th-century Artists

whose works have educated and contributed to the
life of all Bostonians are Ellen Banks, John Bar-
bour, Roger Beatty, Calvin Burnett, Dana Chan-
dler, Robin Chandler, Allan Rohan Crite, Milton
Derr, Paul Goodnight, James Guilford, Barbara
Holt, Arnold Hurley, Larry Johnson, Lois Mailou
Jones, Napoleon Jones-Henderson, Harriet Ken-
nedy, J. Marcus Mitchell, James Reed, Gary
Rickson, Rudy Robinson, Henry Washington,
John Wilson, and Richard Yarde.

Business/Industry

18th Century

Prosperous Hat Maker

Stephen Jackson was a prosperous hat maker in
Boston in the 1730s, when "a man would as soon jj
go without his head as go without his hat."

Early Leader
in Shipping and
Civil Rights

Paul Cuffe of the Westport-New Bedford area be-
came a prosperous merchant, mariner, ship-
builder and owner between 1780 and 1810. He
pioneered the opening up of trade with West Af-
rican countries, using his own ships. He was also
the nation's first Black millionaire who used his
considerable resources to work on behalf of his
people.

19th Century

First Black
Printing Business

In 1838 Benjamin Roberts estabhshed Boston's
first Black-owned and operated printing business.

Coburn's Gaming House

John P. Coburn (1811-1873), a prosperous cloth-
ing dealer and property owner, hired the famous
Boston architect Asher Benjamin to design a home
which he eventually used as a gaming house. Built
in 1843 and still standing at the corner of Phillips
and Irving Streets on Beacon Hill, Coburn's Gam-
ing House was described as a "private place" that
was "the resort of the upper ten who had acquired
a taste for gambling." Coburn left an estate of
$18,500 in real estate and $2,000 in cash.

Black Businesses in 1846

Nearly 200 of Boston's 800 black residents oper-
ated businesses in 1846.

I,. Eliza Ann Gardner conducted a prosperous dress- Prosperous Dressmaker

making business in Boston before the Civil War

and did the delicate needlework for the first ban-
jlj ner made for the Plymouth Rock Chapter of Odd

Fellows.

lat Peyton Stewart, who was in the clothes cleaning Gymnasium Owner

ed business in the mid-1 800s, opened a gymnasium
of with mostly white patronage on the corner of

Boylston and Washington Streets. Assisted by his

daughter in giving athletic instructions, he oper-

ated this prosperous business until his death in

1870.

Civil War Caterer
and Senator

For more than 25 years Joshua B. Smith (1813-
1879) operated a thriving catering business for pri-
vate individuals and abolitionist organizations as
well as for the troops during the Civil War. He
represented Cambridge as a senator in the state
legislature during 1873 and 1874.

Early Entrepreneur

By 1885 J. H. Lewis, one of the best known cloth-
iers of the period, developed a thriving business
making fashionable "bell trousers" in a large shop
on Washington Street in Boston's downtown busi-
ness district.

Successful Tailor Shop

Advertising that clothing could be "cleaned, dyed,
pressed and repaired," Andrew Bush owned a suc-
cessful merchant tailor shop in New Bedford,
Massachusetts, in the late 1800s.

Labor Unions

Labor unions for Blacks in Boston came into ex-
istence in the late 1800s with the establishment of
the Boston Colored Waiters' Alliance or Local 183
of the American Federation of Labor. Members
were so-called public waiters, not regularly em-
ployed, but hired for catering and temporary hotel
and restaurant jobs. They held their charter from
the white waiters' alliance, but they withdrew to
form a semi-independent group.

Laborers in Boston in late 19th century

20th Century

African-American businessman Henry C. Turner Stable/Livery Business

(1852-1919) owned a boarding stable and garage
(1890-1919) and operated a large livery business
in Boston, servicing a mostly white clientele. Con-
structed in 1900, his stable and garage, always
ready with horses, buggies, and carriages for hire,
still stands today, housing the College of Engi-
neering at Boston University on Cummington
Street.

Of the 197 Boston businesses operated by Blacks Black Businesses in 1900

in 1900, 70 were in wholesale and retail trade, 107
were in personal service, and 20 were in other lines
(for example, printing, newspaper publishing, ci-
gar manufacturing, banking, and real estate
rental). Those with personal services included tai-
lors, undertakers, caterers, livery services and sta-
bles, boarding and lodging keepers, restaurant
owners, barbershops, laundries and bootblack
stands.

The National Negro Business League was founded
in Boston in 1900 by Booker T. Washington "to
bring the colored people who are engaged in busi-
ness together for consultation, and to secure infor-
mation and inspiration from each other." More
than 400 business people from 34 states attended
the convention in Boston.

The largest wig manufacturer in Boston in the Wig Manufacturer

early 1900s was Gilbert C. Harris. By 1910 his
mail-order business was the largest of its kind in
New England, supplying theatrical stock compa-
nies throughout the country.

Pavid E. Crawford opened Eureka Co-Operative Eureka Co-Operative Bank

"feank in Boston in 1910, "the only bank in the

East owned and operated by 'Colored People.' "

He was appointed a master in the Chancery by the

Governor of Massachusetts in 1915, and in 1916

the citizens of Boston elected him as a delegate to

the National Republican Convention in Chicago.

By 1920 his holdings of apartments, stores, and

commercial properties were valued at $150,000.

National Negro Business
League

Interior view of Eureka Cooperative Bank

Goode Trust Company The Goode Trust Company, or Jesse Goode As-

sociates, was a group of some 20 Boston Blacks,
most of them waiters, who pooled their weekly
savings to invest in real estate in the first decade
of this century. Its president was Jesse Goode,
head of the large retail and wholesale grocery firm
of Goode, Dunson & Henry. In 1910 the group's
holdings were assessed at $73,000 in value.

Black-Owned Hotels There were three Black-owned and operated hotels

in Boston in 1915: the Pitts, Carlton, and Mel-
bourne.

In the early 20th century Theodore Raymond built
up the largest real estate business in the city of
Cambridge, with property holdings estimated at
about $200,000.

Famous Restaurants Small lunchrooms and restaurants were plentiful

during the early 1900s in Boston's Black neighbor-
hoods. One was the Southern Dining Room oper-
ated by Thomas E. Lucas, who advertised his
place as "cool, clean and commodious. . . . Good
food and prompt attentive service have made this

Largest Real Estate
Business

a most desirable place for discriminating people."
From the 1920s to the 1960s, Slade's Restaurant
was famous for its "soul food," especially its bar-
becued chicken cooked in a rotisserie in a front
window in full view of passersby at its 958 Tre-
mont Street location. This once famous landmark
was established by Renner Slade, who also owned
and operated his own chicken farm. Another fa-
mous restaurant/night club of the past was Es-
telle's, just a few doors down from Slade's at
Tremont Street.

Famous Restaurants

Southern Dining Room

NEGROES ARE REALLY WAKING UP!!
THINKING Negroes around Roxbury are now
spending their money only in stores owned and
operated by Negroes and in other stores
where they find colored help

Very few Negroes are now spending their hard-earned
dollars in places where they haven't a chance
to secure jobs for -themselves
or their children

Front page ad in Boston Chronicle, 1932

Henry Owens

South End Electric In 1923 Leon G. Lomax founded the South End

Company Electric Company in Roxbury, a firm which stayed ;

in business until the early 1970s. Lomax also or-
ganized and became president of the Greater Bos- [,
ton Negro Business and Trade Association in 1938. j

Henry Owens Movers Henry Owens Movers was founded in 1927 in j

Cambridge, becoming one of the major moving
and rigging companies in New England still in
business today. Henry Owens, Sr., founded his
business with a horse and buggy, peddling ice to
his neighbors and carting baggage to and from
Boston's piers for the large Italian immigrant pop-
ulation in his Cambridge neighborhood.

From 1927 to 1942 a branch of the Poro School
and Beauty Shoppe on Massachusetts Avenue, es-
tablished and managed by E. Alice Taylor, was ;
one of the Black-owned firms in New England. :
The school had an annual enrollment of 150 stu- |
dents, and the Beauty Shoppe had a staff of 15 \
professional beauticians. Mrs. Taylor founded The :
Professional Hairdressers Association of Massa- •
chusetts and became its first president.

Poro School and Beauty
Shoppe

The J. B. Johnson Funeral Home, estabhshed in Oldest Funeral Homes

1932, and the Davis Funeral Home, established in
1935 — both still in business — are two of the
oldest continuously performing establishments
providing services to Black families in Boston.

James Guilford, who owned and operated a bar- Leader in

bering business in lower Roxbury from 1934 to Barber Business

1973 (Dunbar Barbers until 1945 and Jimmy

Guilford's Men's Hair Salon until 1973), was state

president of the Associated Master Barbers of

Massachusetts, which included both white and

Black barbers.

For 50 years, from 1938-1988, Clarence Noel
Jackson (1911-1988), Reg. Ph., owned and oper-
ated the Douglass Square Pharmacy in lower Rox-
bury. "Dr. Jackson," as he was called, a graduate
of the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy in
1937, provided a community institution for health
care throughout difficult periods of change in the
lower Roxbury neighborhood.

"Doctor Jackson,"
Pharmacist

James Guilford, barber; customer Sugar Ray Robinson,
World Middleweight Champion, 1964

Calvin M. Grimes, Jr., and
Calvin M. Grimes, Sr.

Grimes Oil Company Calvin M. Grimes, Sr., founded Grimes Oil Com- )

pany in Boston in 1940. Now operated by Calvin
M. Grimes, Jr., this 50-year-old business started
with one ice delivery truck, once serviced more \
than 3,000 residential customers, and now delivers ■
gasoline, fuel oil, diesel fuel, and residual oil to
commercial customers only. Grimes Oil is the na- i
tion's 25th largest minority-owned business.

Master Brick Masons When it comes to using bricks and mortar for the

development and beautification of the community,
the brothers Percy and John Gray have contrib-
uted their skills as master brick masons to the
buildings of Roxbury and the city for more than
50 years.

I In the 1940s and 1950s, at the corner of Massa- Hi-Hat Club

chusetts and Columbus Avenues, stood a land-
mark in the history of jazz, the Hi-Hat Club. (The
new Harriet Tubman House now occupies the
j site.) Originally it was a supper club patronized by
\\ whites listening to "white" music, but the music
j became "Black" and Black clientele followed. Out-
I side a doorman with top hat, cape, and cane,
greeted customers. Situated on two levels, the
downstairs served full barbecue dinners, while the
upstairs lounge oflFered cool drinks and hot jazz.
Most of the leaders of Black Boston patronized
the Hi-Hat. Some of the world's greatest jazz mu-
sicians — Jimmy Rogers, Slam Stewart, the Oscar
Peterson Trio, Errol Garner - entertained at the
Hi-Hat.

The historic Pioneer Club, a semi-private club Pioneer Club

owned by Shag and Bal Taylor and a landmark in
the history of jazz, was a funky after-hours night
spot located in a brick, three-story row house at
the end of a short alley off Tremont Street (where
the new Douglass Plaza now stands). Socially and
culturally, it was a retreat where people who val-
ued privacy could relax. Many would dine at Es-
telle's or Slade's across the street, then stroll over
to the Pioneer to take in an evening of jazz. The
Club began to fill with patrons around 11 p.m.,
and often musicians played through the night un-
til sunrise. Jazz greats playing in Boston — like
Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Sonny Stitt, and
Errol Garner — would drop in after hours to per-
form. The Pioneer Club was also a place where
informal community politics were discussed, and
Black candidates and elected officials met to plan
political strategy with Bal and Shag Taylor.

In the Christmas season of 1945, shoppers at First Downtown Clerks

Gilchrist's brought their gifts for wrapping to a
•young female employee who stood out among the
holiday help. Cynthia Belgrave was the first Black
clerk ever hired in a downtown department store
in Boston. This hiring came from pressure exer-
cised by Boston's Urban League "to get into
downtown somebody besides elevator operators at
Filene's." After Christmas eight more Black
women, along with Belgrave, were hired as retail
clerks at Gilchrist's.

John B. Cruz Construction The John B. Cruz Construction Co., estabHshed
Company in Boston in 1945, has expanded into one of the

largest minority-owned construction firms in the
U.S. This family-owned and operated business has
constructed both housing and commercial com-
plexes to revitalize Boston's Black neighborhoods.

Wally's Paradise Since 1947, Wally's, originally called Wally's Par-

adise and still located on Massachusetts Avenue in
the South End, has been a landmark jazz club.
This neighborhood jazz bar, owned by Joseph
Walcott, who is now 95 years old, has played host
to nationally known musicians like Errol Garner,
Oscar Peterson, Charlie Parker, and Coleman
Hawkins. Local performers, such as drummer
Alan Dawson and saxophonists Greg Osby and
Andy McGhee, all got their start at Wally's where
up-and-coming musicians can also ply their mus-
ical trade. The Club's Sunday afternoon jazz ses-
sion is still one of its oldest and richest traditions.

Printing Business Pioneer EstabHshed in 1952, Lester Benn's printing busi-

ness has served the needs of the Black community
for nearly 40 years. Enamored of the art of the
printing trade, Lester Benn struggled throughout
the 1940s to become an independent printer, ac-
quiring the "bits and pieces" of used machinery
and doing "small jobs" to print eventually under
the "Benn Banner."

Bob "The Chef" Morgan

Bob the Chef's Restaurant has been a popular Bob the Chef's Restaurant
landmark soul food eating place in Boston for 30
years. Established by Bob "the Chef" Morgan on
Columbus Avenue where it stands today, this fa-
mous eating place is known for its ham hocks,
fried chicken, barbecued spareribs, cornbread, and
sweet potato pie. "My first concession in Boston
was in a barroom (The Big M) on Massachusetts
Avenue — there were only four stools, but the
word spread and business grew; now we can seat
150 people at a time," said Morgan in the mid-
1980s. Bob the Chef, who died in 1987, will al-
ways be remembered standing by his cash register
as he took customers' money with a smile, saying,
"God bless you ... so nice to see you and come
again."

A leading African-American businesswoman in
Boston for more than 20 years, Estella V. Crosby
owned and operated a dry goods store on Tremont
Street. She chaired the annual convention of the
National Business League in Boston in 1955, or-
ganized the Housewives League, and was active in
the League of Women Voters.

Leading Businesswoman

Negro Business and A vital force in Boston's business development for

Professional Women's Clubs more than 30 years, the Boston Association of Ne-
gro Business and Professional Women's Clubs was
organized in 1957 "to create and develop oppor-
tunities for African-American women in business
and the professions and to protect their interests."

Stull and Lee, Inc. The architectural and planning firm of Stull and

Lee, Inc., estabUshed by Donald L. Stull in 1966,
has made a profound impact on the physical en-
vironment and landscape of Boston. With co-
partner David Lee and a staff of 40 design profes-
sionals — architects, planners, and urban design-
ers — Stull and Lee grew from residential design
work to major building projects in educational,
health care, correctional facilities, office and man-
ufacturing facilities, transit station design, and a
variety of urban design and planning commis-
sions. Among the firm's designs are: Roxbury
Community College, The Harriet Tubman Center,
the town-square concept for the South Station
concourse, and the new Ruggles Street (MBTA)
station. The firm's Southwest Corridor Urban De-
sign (a linear park running some 4.7 miles through
the city) represents the first time in Boston that an
architectural rather than an engineering firm has
developed an outdoor landscape aesthetic.

Donald Stull (left) and David Lee (right)

Archie Williams (seated center)

In 1967 the United Community Construction First Construction Workers'
Workers, led by Leo Fletcher, became the first Union
Black construction workers' union in Boston.

Now more than 20 years old. Freedom Electronics Freedom Electronics and

and Engineering was founded by lawyer and busi- Engineering
nessman Archie Williams during the height of the
civil rights movement in Boston in the 1960s. The
firm presently supplies products and services for
giant high-tech industries such as Digital Equip-
ment Corporation, Honeywell Information Sys-
tems, New England Telephone, and the Gillette
Company.

In June 1968 Unity Bank, the first full-service Unity Bank

Black bank in Boston, opened its doors for busi-
ness. Approximately 70 percent of the $1.2 mil-
lion in bank assets was raised by subscription in
the Black community.

Black Corporate Presidents of New England, Inc.,
was formed and incorporated in 1973 by a group
of Black manufacturers concerned about the exist-
ing barriers which prevented their businesses from
full access to public and private sector contract
opportunities. Today BCPNE represents a re-
gional constituency and the interest of some 5,000
Black-owned manufacturing and service industries
in the New England region.

Boston Bank of Commerce Incorporated on June 30, 1982, with Juan M. Co-
field as its leading founder and president from
1982-83, Boston Bank of Commerce is the only
fully insured Black-owned and operated bank in
Boston and New England. A successor to Unity
Bank and Trust, Boston's first Black-owned Bank,
the Boston Bank of Commerce is unique in its
outreach and service to religious, academic, social
service, health and human service agencies and or-
ganizations. Under the leadership of Ronald A.
Homer, who became president and chief executive
officer in June 1983, a winning investment strat-
egy has been showing an annual growth rate of 30
percent. Commenting on the $70 million bank
with its record of consistent profitability, growth,
and service. Homer anticipates "that our most sig-
nificant contribution to community reinvestment
... is destined to become a national model for
neighborhood revitalization and minority business
opportunity." The bank has been named "Bank of
the Year" by Black Enterprise magazine and "One
of New England's Ten Best" by the Boston Her-
ald.

Top Black Businesses In Black Enterprise magazine's listings of the top

100 Black companies and the 100 largest Black
auto dealers in the United States during the late
1980s, a number of Boston area-based businesses
made the fists: B.M.L. Associates (telecommuni-
cations); Grimes Oil Company (petroleum prod-
ucts distribution); HII Corporation (construction
and real estate development); InPut OutPut Com-
puter Services (computer software and systems in-
tegration); J.J.S. Services, Inc. (janitorial services
and supplies); Scott and Duncan Co. (architec-
tural woodworking); Apex Construction (office
computer furniture and supplies distribution);

Black Corporate
Presidents

and Barron Chevrolet (Danvers), Walton Ford-
Volkswagen (Medford), and Westfield Ford (all in
auto sales).

Top Black Businesses

Real estate entrepreneur Richard Taylor was ap- Secretary of Transportation
pointed in 1988 to the Board of Directors of the
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston; and in 1990 he
became Deputy Chairman, both first appoint-
ments for an African-American in Boston. The
Federal Reserve is "the banker's bank," controlling
the money supply of the country. In 1991 Taylor
was appointed Secretary of Transportation by
Governor William Weld.

Government/Politics

18th Century

Voting Rights for Blacks Prominent businessman Paul Cuffe used his influ-

ence to petition the Massachusetts legislature for
voting rights for Blacks and American Indians,
which were later granted through court action in
1783.

19th Century

Ward 9 Politicians

From Boston's "old" Ward 9 in the Beacon Hill
area, Boston's Black citizens were able to elect 20
Black persons to public office — to the city coun-
cil, the state legislature, and school committee —
during the second half of the 19th century.

First Federal Position

William C. Nell (1816-1874) was appointed a
postal clerk in the U.S. Postal System in 1860, be-
coming the first African-American to hold a fed-
eral civilian job in the city.

William Nell

John J. Smith

John J. Smith, whose barber shop was an aboH-
tionist rendezvous prior to the Civil War, was
elected to the state House of Representatives in
1868 and 1869, and then re-elected in 1872. He
was also the first Black to serve on the Boston
Common Council in 1878.

Lewis Hayden, a leading 19th-century Black abo-
litionist who harbored over two-thirds of Boston's
fugitive slaves in his Beacon Hill house prior to
the Civil War, was elected to the Massachusetts
General Court in 1873.

Four African-Americans served on the Cambridge Early Cambridge City

City Council in the 1800s: J. Milton Clark, 1873; Councilors
William Stevenson, 1882-83; W. C. Lane, 1883-84;
Louis E. Baldwin, 1891-95.

First on Boston
Common Council

Underground Railroad
Leader

Early Boston City Councilors

The 19th-century African-American members of
the Boston City Council were:

George L. Ruffin, 1876-77

James W. Pope, 1881

William O. Armstrong, 1885-86

Andrew B. Leattimore, 1887-88

Charles E. Harris, 1889-90

Nelson Gaskins, 1891

Walden Banks, 1892-93

Stanley Ruffin, 1894-95

J. Henderson Allston, 1894-95 -

Charles H. Hall, 1895.

Early State Representatives

The 19th-century African-American state repre-
sentatives were:

Edwin G. Walker, 1866
Charles L. Mitchell, 1866
John J. Smith, 1868, 1869, 1872
George L. Ruffin, 1870, 1871
Joshua B. Smith, 1873, 1874
George W Lowther, 1878, 1879
Julius C. Chappelle, 1883-86
William O. Armstrong, 1887, 1888
Andrew B. Leattimore, 1889, 1890
Charles E. Harris, 1892
Robert T. Teamoh, 1894
William L. Reed, 1896, 1897

19th-century Statesman

Julius C. Chappelle had one of the most success-
ful careers in Boston electoral politics of the late
19th century. He was elected to the Republican
State Central Committee, the Boston City Coun-
cil, and the state legislature. He served in the state
House of Representatives from 1883 to 1886, the
longest continuous tenure of any Black on Beacon
Hill until Herbert Loring Jackson of Maiden
served from 1951 to 1954.

First City Appointment

The first appointment of an African-American to
a city position in Boston appears to have been that
of W. W. Bryant, who in 1885 was made deputy
sealer of weights and measures.

Cambridge Office Holder

Clement G. Morgan, a graduate of Harvard Law
School, was elected to the Cambridge Common

I^ouncil in 1895. He was later elected a Cambridge
\lderman and appointed to the Highway Com-
nission.

Cambridge Office Holder

20th Century

William J. Williams, a lawyer, was the first Black
elected to the Chelsea Board of Aldermen. His
term was from 1902 to 1906. He also served as a
captain in Company L of the State Militia.

Chelsea Alderman

Attorney E. E. Brown was appointed Assistant
Health Commissioner for the city of Boston in
1907 by Mayor Fitzgerald, a Democrat. The
Guardian newspaper called Brown's appointment
the "best position any colored man ever had in
Boston." The newspaper went on to say, "The ap-
pointment of a colored man to such a high-salar-
ied position ($2,500 a year) displeased all color-
prejudiced white politicians." Incoming Mayor

inUUUcilU, d I\.C|JUUllCclll , ICllUJVCU DlUWll llUlll LllC

job by abolishing the position, saying it was not
needed.

Top Position for "Colored
Man"

The first Blacks elected to the Massachusetts leg-

i^lfltiirp in tVip 90th ppntiirv wprp T-T T pwi<;

lOlClLUlV^ 111 tllV/ ^V/Lll V^CllLLllJ' Wvlt' VV llllCllll 11. l^tWlo

(from Cambridge in 1909) and Lincoln Pope (from
Boston in 1956), with Pope being the first Black
Democrat to represent Boston in the legislature.

First Massachusetts

T poidiitrkrc

Stewart E. Hoyt, who started as a clerk in the
Boston tax collector's office, rose to the position of
Deputy Tax Collector for the City in the 1920s,
retiring in 1931.

Deputy Tax Collector

~ '.

wiiiidiu JL. iveeu wds me iirsi j_/Aecuiive oecreidry

of the Massachusetts Governor's Council, serving

from 1924 to 1942.

oecreidry ui ^jovernor s
Council

On April 28, 1936 JuHan Rainey was elected an
alternate delegate to the Democratic National
Convention. Helen Whiteman was elected an al-
ternate delegate to the Republican National Con-
vention the same year.

National Political Delegates

Balcom Taylor

Silas Taylor

Legendary Community
Politicians

From the mid- 1920s through the 1950s, brothers
Silas F. and Balcom S. Taylor, Registered Phar-
macists, championed voter registration, jobs,
housing, and political participation for Blacks in
Boston, when there were no elected Black officials
in city or state government. Their drugstore on
Tremont Street (Lincoln Pharmacy) served also as
a place for building a community network, "pro-
viding a voice" for Black neighborhoods at City
Hall and the State House. Silas (Shag) Taylor, who
served briefly on the state Parole Board, was the
most powerful Democrat in the Black wards of
Boston from the 1930s until his death in the late
1950s.

20th-century Statesman

Herbert L. Jackson became one of the most suc-
cessful Black politicians in the history of Massa-
chusetts, serving some 30 years in public office
from the 1940s to the 1970s. He was first elected
in 1945 to a seat on the Maiden City Council,
where he served until 1950, when he won his first
of two terms as a state representative from Mai-
den. After a losing bid for a third term, he was
re-elected to the City Council, where he served as
president in 1949, 1965, 1971, and 1975. The
Council Chambers in Maiden are named in honor
of Herbert Jackson.

20th-century First

Lawrence Banks, a Republican, became the first
African-American from Boston to serve in the
Massachusetts legislature in the 20th century, when i.
he was elected from Ward 9 in 1946. Banks also
won election to the Boston City Council in 1949.

In 1950 Beulah H. Hester became the first Black
appointed to the Boston Board of Overseers of
Public Welfare.

Public Welfare Overseer

In 1952 Madeline D. Andrews was elected to the
Medford School Committee. She was apparently
the first Black woman elected to public office in
Massachusetts.

First Elected
Black Woman

Clarence Richard Elam (1923-1985) performed as
a pioneering public servant as Assistant Director
of Civil Defense for the City of Boston from 1950-
52, Executive Secretary of the Governor's Council
(1952-56), Chairman of the Boston Licensing
Board (1956-74), and Special Assistant to Attor-
ney General Edward W. Brooke (1964-66).

Pioneering Public Servant

In 1959 Frank Morris became the first African-
American senior manager of a state agency in the
history of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
when he was appointed to the position of director
of the State Housing Board. Starting as a junior
planner with the Board in 1948, Frank Morris had
one of the longest careers — 38 years — of any
Black in state government when he retired in 1986
as Special Counsel to the Executive Office of
Communities and Development which grew out of
the State Housing Board.

State Housing Board First

Frank Morris

Edward W. Brooke

Thomas Atkins

In 1962 Edward W. Brooke, a Boston attorney, be-
came the first African-American to be elected At-
torney General for the Commonwealth. Two years
later, in 1.964, he became the first African-Amer-
ican elected to the United States Senate since Re- j
construction. 1

Thomas Atkins In 1967 Thomas Atkins became the first Black [

Bostonian to win a city-wide election to the Bos- '
ton City Council. He served two two-year terms '
before losing a campaign for mayor in 1971.

First U.S. Senator since
Reconstruction

Newton Alderman Matthew Jefferson was the first Black to serve on

the Newton Board of Aldermen. He repeatedly

won election to the board in nine city-wide elec- \

tion campaigns after being chosen to join the ]

board in 1968. In all he served as alderman for 20 [

years, six of those years as president. |:

Leader in Government Paul Parks served as Director of Model Cities un- j

and Education der Boston Mayor Kevin White, first Massachu- j

setts Secretary of Education under Governor 1;
Frank Sargent, a member of the Board of Ap-
peals in Boston, and president of the Board of
Trustees, Boston Public Library.

Two African-American women have held simulta- Dual Political Roles

neously two elected political offices. Sandra Gra-
ham of Cambridge served as City Councilor in her
city from 1971 to 1989 and served as a state rep-
resentative in the Massachusetts legislature from
1977 to 1988. Shirley Owens-Hicks, while serving
on the Boston School Committee in 1987, also was
elected to state representative.

In 1972 the Massachusetts Legislative Black Cau- Massachusetts Legislative

cus was founded in an effort to coordinate the ef- Black Caucus

forts of Black elected officials and make them
more accountable to the Black community.

John Boone served as Commissioner of the Mas- Correction Department First
sachusetts Department of Correction from 1972 to
August 1973. He was the first (and only) African-
American to hold this position in the 74-year his-
tory of the Department.

Doris Bunte was the first African- American First Black Woman in

woman to serve in the Massachusetts legislature. Legislature
Elected in 1972, she served as state representative
until 1985.

In 1975 Bill Owens became the first African-
American elected to the Massachusetts Senate,
representing the Second Suffolk District. He served
from 1976 to 1982. He was elected to the same
seat in 1988 and remains the only African- Amer-
ican in the State Senate. He and Shirley Owens-
Hicks also have the distinction of being the first
brother-and-sister team to serve in the Massachu-
setts legislature.

First Black State Senator

Bill Owens

Doris Bunte

Bruce Boiling, Royal Boiling, Jr.,
and Royal Boiling, Sr. (left to right)

Leading City Official Clarence "Jeep" Jones was the first African-Amer-

ican to serve as a Deputy Mayor of Boston in 1976,
where he served until 1981 under Mayor Kevin H.
White. In 1989 Jones was appointed by Mayor
Raymond L. Flynn as Chairman of the Boston
Redevelopment Authority, another first for an Af-
rican-American.

Government Administrator On his way to an affirmative action meeting with

the Boston Redevelopment Authority on April 5,
1976, African-American attorney Theodore
Landsmark was physically assaulted by anti-bus-
ing demonstrators on City Hall plaza. One of the
demonstrators swung an American flag at him.
Landsmark's flag flogging and resulting injuries
became a national symbol of racial intolerance in
Boston. At the time of the attack, Landsmark was
director of the Contractors Association of Boston.
Since that time he has held a succession of key
government posts: the first African-American ap-
pointed as director of the Massachusetts Bay
Transportation Authority (1977); director of the
Mayor's Office of Jobs and Community Services
(1989); director of the Safe Neighborhoods Pro-
gram for the city of Boston (1990).

The Boiling family represented a phenomenon un- Boiling Family: Political

precedented in Boston politics in the early 1980s, Phenomenon

when three members held elective office at the

same time — Royal Boiling, Sr., served as state

senator, while his son Royal Boiling, Jr., served

as state representative, and his son Bruce Boiling

served on the Boston City Council. In 1986 Bruce

Boiling was elected Council president, a first for

an African-American in Boston government.

In 1983 Mel King changed Boston's political his- Mel King

tory when he became the first Black mayoral can-
didate in the city's history to win a preliminary
election and run in the general election for control
of Boston City Hall. While defeated in the runoff"
by Ray Flynn, he gathered 30 percent of the gen-
eral vote and 90 percent of the Black vote. A for-
mer five-time elected state representative from
Lower Roxbury and the South End, King cur-
rently heads MIT's Community Fellows Program.
For more than 35 years he and his wife Joyce have
been steadfast advocates for community control
and improvement in Boston.

Melvin King

101

City Treasurer First In 1984 George Russell, Jr., became the first Af-

rican-American to hold the office of City Treas-
urer, following his appointment by Mayor
Raymond L. Flynn.

Yancey Makes State Ballot In 1986 Boston City Councilor Charles Yancey was

the first African-American representing the Dem-
ocratic Party to secure a position on a statewide
ballot in his bid to become State Auditor.

Media and Political Strategist In 1986 the Boston Globe called media and polit- '

ical strategist Joyce Ferriabough the only woman
to break into the campaign managers' circle when
she guided Charles Yancey's historic run for State
Auditor. Regularly quoted in the news media for
her views on political trends, especially as they re-
flect the minority community, Ferriabough has ■
been a participant in a number of firsts. She was f
Press Secretary/New England for Rev. Jesse Jack-
son's first run for the presidency in 1984. She
helped craft, promote and lobby for the city's link- ;
age legislation, a first for the city of Boston. ||

In 1986 The Black Political Task Force joined
forces with the Rainbow Coalition, the Massachu-
setts Latino Democratic Committee, and the Asian \
Political Caucus to challenge the redistricting plan ■
put forth by the Massachusetts House of Repre-
sentatives. Redistricting is the process by which \
city, state, and federal districts are drawn, based
upon shifts in the population. The Task Force :
charged that the redistricting plan did not reflect ^
the increases in the African-American and His- ;
panic communities shown in the most recent cen-
sus. The Task Force also charged that the plan
violated the constitutional guarantee of one per- r
son/one vote and diluted voter strength by "pack- -
ing" Blacks in specific areas and "cracking" \
Hispanics in areas throughout the city (a practice i
known as gerrymandering). This successful chal-
lenge led to the creation of a new district, the Fifth
Suffolk District, from which the first Hispanic
State Representative, Nelson Merced, was elected.

Creating Political
Opportunities

102

Ronald H. Brown, who spent his early childhood Chairman of National

in Roxbury and attended the David A. Ellis Democratic Party

School, became Chairman of the National Dem-
ocratic Party in 1989, a historic first for an Afri-
can-American,

103

Law

18th Century

Slave Sued Master In 1773 slave Caesar Hendricks took his master to

court "for detaining him in slavery"; the all-white
jury freed Hendricks and awarded him damages.

19th Century

First Licensed Attorney Macon B. Allen, who was the first licensed Afri-

can-American attorney in the United States (he
passed the bar exam in Maine in 1844), was the
first to practice law in Boston, having been admit-
ted to the Suffolk County, Massachusetts bar in
May 1845. He became a Justice of the Peace in
1848 and practiced law in Massachusetts until
1870.

First Attorney to Pass

Robert Morris was the first attorney in Massachu-

Massachusetts Exam

setts to pass the Massachusetts bar examination in

1847.

First Jurors

African- Americans first served as jurors in Mas-

sachusetts in 1860.

First Black Lawyer before

John Sweat Rock (1825-1866), a noted Boston

Supreme Court

lawyer, became in 1865 the first African- Ameri-

can to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and

the first Black person to speak before the U.S.

House of Representatives.

Prominent New Bedford

Emmanual Sullavou was a prominent lawyer in

Lawyer

New Bedford in the late 1800s. Having graduated

from Harvard in 1871, he was admitted to the

Massachusetts bar in 1875. He served on the New

Bedford City Council and as a clerk of the district

court.

104

Robert Morris

IS Archibald H. Grimke (1849-1930) was the second Early Civil Rights Leader

African- American to graduate from Harvard Law
School (1874). While struggling to establish a law
practice in Boston, he started the first Black news-

."paper in New England, The Hub, in 1883. The
paper, a voice of protest for Blacks in New Eng-
land, lasted until 1886. While an alternate dele-
gate to Henry Cabot Lodge at the Republican
National Convention in 1884, he became a leader
of the Black "independents" in politics, saying,
"The Republican party is no longer devoted to the
colored man." In 1884 he was appointed by Pres-
ident Cleveland to be the consul at Santo Dom-
ingo in the Dominican Republic. A founder of the
NAACP, he was a civil rights leader from the era
of slavery until his death on the eve of the Great
Depression.

105

In remarkable achievements in widely different
fields, Hamilton S. Smith not only became the first
African-American to receive a law degree from
Boston University in 1879, but in 1889 he also re-
ceived a doctor of dentistry degree from Howard
University.

First Black Judge George L. Ruffin of Boston became the first Af-

rican-American judge in Massachusetts with his
appointment in 1883 to the District Court of
Charlestown. He served in this position until his
death in 1886. In 1869 he was the first African-
American to earn a law degree from Harvard Uni-
versity. In 1984 the Justice George Lewis Ruffin
Society was established by Black senior-level crim-
inal justice professionals in Massachusetts, led by
Judge Julian Houston. The Society, hosted by
Northeastern University, encourages greater un-
derstanding between the Black community and
criminal justice professionals. A portrait of Judge
Ruffin was unveiled at Charlestown District Court
in February 1990.

Remarkable Lawyer
and Dentist

20th Century

Founder of Resthaven Edgar P. Benjamin, an 1894 graduate of Boston

Nursing Home University's Law School, established a private

practice in civil and criminal law of which he said,
"I am sole counsel for many large firms and cor-
porations, and businesses, many of which are
white. . . ." In 1927 Benjamin founded Resthaven,
a charitable nursing home for the elderly on Fisher
Avenue in Roxbury. Today Resthaven Nursing
Home is a 260-bed facility carrying on the tradi-
tion of community service begun by Edgar R Ben-
jamin.

Outstanding WiUiam H. Lewis (1869-1949), long recognized as

Criminal Lawyer one of Boston's outstanding criminal lawyers, was

the first African-American to hold the position of
Assistant United States Attorney General, ap-
pointed by President Taft in 1911.

106

William H. Lewis

Attorney John W. Schenck (1869-1962), admitted
to the Massachusetts Bar in 1914, was appointed
Assistant U.S. Attorney in Boston in 1920 and
held that position until 1933. During that time he
handled most of the immigration cases in the
Commonwealth.

Noted Immigration
Lawyer

Henry E. Quarles, Sr., born in Boston in 1906,
and a graduate of Suffolk Law School in 1928, is
considered "The Dean" of Black lawyers in Bos-
ton. He holds the distinction of having the longest
legal career — 61 years of practice as an attorney
— in Boston. He received an Honorary Doctor of
Law from Suffolk in 1979 and was the first Black
lawyer to appear in courts in cities and towns out-
side of Boston and in Maine, New Hampshire, and
Vermont.

'Dean" of Black Lawyers

In the 1930s Julian Rainey became the first As-
sistant Corporation Counsel for the city of Bos-
ton.

First City Lawyer

107

Matthew Bullock

Harry J. Elam

First on Parole Board In the 1930s Matthew Bullock became the first

Black appointed to the Massachusetts Parole
Board.

First Black Judge In 1948 Bruce Robinson became the first Black

appointed to the bench in Massachusetts. He was
named Associate Justice of the Boston Juvenile
Court by Governor Robert Bradford.

Assistant Attorney General Glendora Putnam was the first African-American

female lawyer to serve as an assistant Attorney
General for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
She served under three state Attorneys General
from 1963 to 1969: Edward W. Brooke, Elliot
Richardson, and Robert Quinn.

Distinguished Black Judge, Harry J. Elam became the first Black to serve as
Harry J. Elam a Justice in the more than 300-year history of the

Boston Municipal Court when he was appointed
in 1971 as an Associate Justice. In 1978 he was
the unanimous choice of the full bench of the Su-
preme Judicial Court to serve a five-year term as
Chief Justice of the Boston Municipal Court,
again a first for a Black lawyer. In 1979 he
founded Project Commitment, in which trial
judges bring caring adults into the Boston public
schools to provide positive role models for stu-
dents in an effort to reduce the number of young
people that come before the criminal courts. In
1983 Judge Elam was appointed as Associate Jus-
tice of the Massachusetts Superior Court, a posi-
tion he held until his retirement in 1988.

108

Joyce London Alexander became the first Black

First Female Federal

woman in the country appointed as a federal mag-

Magistrate

istrate in Boston when she was named to that post

by President Jimmy Carter in 1979.

David S. Nelson became the first Black federal

First Federal Judge

judge in Massachusetts in 1979.

Margaret Burnham, the first Black female lawyer

Two Firsts for Margaret

to practice in Boston Municipal Court, was also

Burnham

the first African-American woman appointed as-

sociate justice in 1977, a position she held until

1983.

In 1989 Rudolph F. Pierce became the first Afri-

President of Boston

can-American to be elected President of the Bos-

Bar Association

ton Bar Association, the oldest local bar

association in the nation, founded in 1761 by John

Adams.

Wayne A. Budd was nominated for U.S. Attorney Wayne A. Budd,

by President George Bush in March 1989 and U.S. Attorney

confirmed for the position by the U.S. Senate in
September 1989. A native of Springfield, Massa-
chusetts, he was the first African-American presi-
^ dent of the Massachusetts Bar Association (1979-
80) and headed New England's largest Black-
owned law firm before his historic appointment as
the U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts.

Wayne Budd, U.S. Attorney

Attorneys Judith Dilday, Geraldine Hines, and Margaret
Burnham

First Black Attorneys Margaret Burnham, Geraldine Hines,

Female Law Firm and Judith Dilday established the first Black fe-

male law firm in New England in 1989. Located
in Boston, Burnham, Hines and Dilday specialize
in family law, divorce, wills, custody, and civil and
criminal litigation.

First Court The Roxbury District Court Child Care Center was

Child Care Center the first court-affiliated drop-in care center in New

England for families who must bring their chil-
dren with them when they have court business.
Roxbury District Court Judge Julian T. Houston,
now a Superior Court judge, worked for four years
to bring his idea of such a center to fruition in
May 1989. Parents with court business and no
child care arrangements or with children waiting
to appear in court proceedings can use the center
free of charge. Initial funding for the center start-
up and space renovation came from public and
private sources, including Bank of Boston. Asso-
ciated Day Care Services of Metropolitan Boston
developed and now operates the center, located in
the Dudley Branch Library, with Massachusetts
Department of Social Services and United Way
funds.

110

I With his election in 1990, Barack H. Obama be- Harvard Law Review

came the first Black president of the Harvard Law President
. Review in its 103-year history. 77?^ Review is man-
1 aged and edited by 78 student editors selected
from Harvard's 1,600 law students. In its first 85
years, The Review has had three Black editors:
Charles Houston, a civil rights attorney; William
T. Coleman, Secretary of Transportation under
■ President Gerald Ford; and William Hastie, a fed-
I eral appeals judge.

I In March 1990 Judith Dilday became the first Af- Women's Bar Association

I rican-American president of the prestigious Wom- President
len's Bar Association. Just the year before she had
j helped establish the first Black female law firm in
i New England, Burnham, Hines and Dilday.

Ill

Journalism

19th Century

First Black Newspaper

Boston's first Black newspaper of record before the
Civil War was the Emancipator and Free Ameri-
can, founded in 1842 and closed in 1844.

Liberator

From 1832 to 1865 the Liberator was a powerful
anti-slavery and "underground" newspaper for
Black citizens. Founded and published by the fiery i
white abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison, the
paper had Black reporters and columnists.

Black Newspaper
Publisher

In 1838 Benjamin Roberts (who worked for The
Liberator under William Lloyd Garrison) estab-
lished the Anti-Slavery Herald, intended to be an
anti-slavery journal by and for Blacks in Boston.
Only a few issues were printed. In 1853 Roberts
tried again estabhshing a Black paper called Self
Elevator.

112

William Lloyd Garrison

William C. Nell of Boston, an early writer-re-
porter for the Liberator, was also a pioneering
Black historian, having written Services of the
Colored Americans in the Wars 1776 and 1812
(1852) and The Colored Patriots of the American
Revolution with Sketches of Several Distinguished
Colored Persons to Which Is Added a Brief Sur-
vey of the Condition and Prospects of Colored
Americans (1855).

Pioneering Black
Historian

Lillian Lewis was the first African-American
woman journalist in Boston. In the 1880s, she
wrote for The Advocate, a Black community
newspaper. She then went to The Boston Herald,
writing under the name of Bert Islew, scrambling
the letters of her last name to disguise the fact
that she was a woman, as female journalists were
"frowned upon" by society.

First Female Journalist

J. Gordon Street was a journalist for three of Bos-
ton's white newspapers in the 1880s: the Boston
Beacon, the Boston Evening Record, and The Bos-
ton Herald. Critical of the white American press's
neglect of discrimination faced by Blacks in the
late 19th century, he established a Black newspa-
per, 772^ Boston Courant, as an equal rights paper
in 1890.

Founder of Equal Rights
Newspaper

Bob Teamoh was perhaps the first African-Amer- Early Black Reporter

ican reporter for a white newspaper in Boston,
having obtained a staff position in 1890 with The
Boston Daily Globe. He was elected to the state
legislature in 1894.

The Afro-American Press and Its Editors, the Early Black Newspapers

Boston Co-Operator, The Boston Leader, The Ad-
vocate, the Courant, and The Boston Observer
were early Black newspapers in Boston during the
1880s and 1890s.

20th Century

The Colored American Magazine, the first signifi- Colored American

cant Black periodical to appear in Boston in the Magazine
20th century, was started in Boston in May 1900

113

Of One Blood ; or, The Hidden Self, by M iss Hopkins. BBelnsinThisN gmber

■■■■■■■■■■■■■■^^■■■^^^■■■■■^■■■^■■■■■■Mii^V

COLOREDANERICAN

MAGAZINE

15CENT5 A Number November, 1902 $1.50 a Year.

Cover of The Colored American Magazine, November 1902

114

by the Colored Cooperative Publishing Company. ^^^^^^^ American

It was "devoted to Literature, Science, Music, Art, Magazine
Religion, Facts, Fiction, and Traditions of the Ne-
gro race."

The Boston Guardian newspaper, a major 20th-
century civil rights publication, was founded in
Boston in 1901 by William Monroe Trotter, who
published the newspaper until his death in 1934.
For the next 23 years (1934-1957), Trotter's sister,
Maude Trotter Steward, and her husband. Dr.
Charles Steward, edited and published the paper,
keeping alive the spirit of the Black news medium
at a great sacrifice.

Boston Guardian

William Monroe Trotter
115

George W. Forbes j

Writer on Race Politics During the first quarter of the 20th century George

W. Forbes (1864-1927) was an important journal-
ist for national race politics. From 1893 to 1903,
he edited the Boston Courant, one of Boston's
early Black newspapers. He helped start the Bos-
ton Guardian, founded and published by William
M. Trotter in 1901. He wrote the "flaming and
scorching" editorials for The Guardian denounc-
ing Booker T. Washington. Leaving The Guardian
in 1904, he edited the African Methodist Episco-
pal Review. Forbes contributed articles on race re- jj
lations and Black history to the Springfield :
Republican and the Boston Transcript and did ;
book reviews for the NAACP's Crisis magazine.

The Boston Chronicle, from 1920 to 1967, was 1

"New England's largest Negro Weekly Newspa- |

per." Published and edited by Alfred Haughton f

with William Harrison as Associate Editor, this :

Black community newspaper covered local, state- \

wide, regional, national, and international news ;
of people, places, and events.

William Worthy, Jr., born in Boston in 1921 and
educated in its public schools, served as an emi-
nent and significant foreign correspondent and
columnist for the Baltimore Afro-American from
1951 to 1980; as a special CBS News correspond-
ent in China, Africa, and the Soviet Union be-
tween 1955-57; and as a Nieman Fellow in
journalism at Harvard University during 1956-57.
Worthy is still active as a free-lance journalist and
lecturer.

Largest Negro Weekly
Newspaper

Eminent Foreign
Correspondent

116

William Worthy

WILD Radio has been on the air since 1953 and WILD Radio

in 1972 became the only urban contemporary ra-
dio station owned and operated by African-Amer-
icans, the Sheridan Broadcasting Company. In
1980, African-American media entrepreneur Ken-
dell Nash purchased the station from Sheridan and
has been its owner and president since that time.

Gretchen Jackson was the first African-American First on Radio

woman to have a sponsored and sustained day-
time radio program in Boston from 1953 to 1961.
As a disc jockey and talk-show interviewer, she
was heard first on WBOS and later on WBMS.

In 1954 George Forsyth became the first African- Newspaper/Radio/TV
American reporter to be hired by the Boston Trav- Pioneer
eler, the afternoon paper owned by the Boston
Herald. Beginning as a street reporter, he became
a feature writer and drama and entertainment
critic. In 1968 he joined the staff" of WHDH-TV
as an on-air reporter, transferring to WHDH-ra-
dio in 1972. In 1975 he moved to public affairs
with the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services in Boston. This pioneering Black journal-
ist was born in Roxbury, graduated from English
High School, and received his degree in journal-
ism from Boston University after serving in World
War II.

Newspaper Professional Dexter D. Eure, Sr., completed 25 years of service

at The Boston Globe in 1989. He had started as
an assistant to the manager of circulation in 1963
and five years later became an assistant to the ed-
itor for urban affairs. For two years he was the
only Black American in Boston with a weekly col-
umn. Later he organized the Globe's Community
Relations Department to improve the paper's cov-
erage of Black people, their viewpoints, and events
in the Black community, becoming its first direc-
tor. Eure was also the first Globe employee to join
the paper's contributions committee, which be-
came The Globe Foundation, in which he now
serves as a director.

Bay State Banner The Bay State Banner, Boston's African- Ameri-

can newspaper founded in 1965 and published by
Melvin Miller, celebrated its 25th anniversary in
1990.

20 Years or More An impressive roster of journalists have "made ;

in Journalism news" on the Boston scene for more than 20 years.

Among them: Robert (Bob) Jordan, columnist and
editorial writer with the Boston Globe and the first ;
African- American elected to head the Globe's
1,200 member employees' union in 1989; Sarah
Ann Shaw and Walter Sanders, general assign- ;
ment reporters at WBZ-TV; WGBH-TV and
WBZ-radio talk show host Lovell Dyett; Gary
Armstrong, general assignment reporter at Chan- ;
nel 7; and Luix Overbea, formerly a writer for The
Christian Science Monitor and now a TV show
host for the Monitor. Others achieving career sue- ;
cess in journalism include Channel 5's anchor Jim
Boyd, as well as Carmen Fields of Channel 2, and .i
Tanya Hart, formerly with WBZ-TV and more re-
cently with the new and successful Black Enter-
tainment Network. Behind the scenes for some 20
years have been cameramen Richard Chase at
Channel 4; Therman Toon at Channel 7; and, at
Channel 5, Donnat Mitchell and Bob Wilson (for-
merly with Channel 2). In the competitive field of
journalism, their longevity is a significant career
accomplishment for these African-Americans.

118

Liz Walker Melvin Miller

"Say Brother," produced by WGBH-TV (Channel Long-Running TV Programs
2) for the past 20 years, is the longest running tel-
evision show targeted to the African-American
and minority communities in Boston. "Urban Up-
date" (formerly "Black News") on WHDH (Chan-
nel 7) is a close second with a nearly 18-year on-
air history.

Janet Langhart was the first African-American First Talk Show Host

woman to host a daytime TV talk and variety
show in Boston. Between 1973 and 1978 she co-
hosted the Good Morning Show, later named the
Good Day Show, with Jack Willis on WCVB-TV,
Channel 5.

WNEV-TV (now WHDH-TV, Channel 7) in Bos-
ton was the first major television station in the
country to have Black people as majority owners
when, between 1981 and 1986, Bertram Lee, Ruth
Batson, Thomas Brown, Henry Hampton, Joyce
Fredkin, Melvin Miller, and Barron Martin were
major stockholders.

In 1982 Liz Walker became the first African- Prime Time First

American in Boston's TV history to anchor a

prime time weekly newscast. She co-hosts the 6:00

and 11:00 p.m. newscasts on WBZ-TV (Channel

4).

Former Owners
of Cliannel 7

119

TV Executive First When Donna Latson Gittens was named vice pres-

ident of community programming for WCVB-TV
in 1983, she became the first African- American in
the history of local television to assume this exec-
utive position and one of a relatively few in the
nation.

120

Military Service

18th Century

Among 101 members recruited into Captain Three Blacks

Thomas Cheyney's Massachusetts militia com- in 1747 Militia

pany for an expedition into Canada in 1747 were
three Blacks, listed as Will, Cuffee, and Samuel.
(During slavery, slaves and even ex-slaves some-
times did not have surnames, or were not referred
to by whites by their surnames.)

Barzillai Lew of Cambridge, who had been a Served General Washington

member of the Massachusetts fighting unit during
the French and Indian War of 1760, was one of
the full seven-year veterans of the American Rev-
olution. He directly served General George Wash-
ington and later headed an all-Black unit in Rhode
Island during the final years of the Revolution.

Crispus Attucks, an ex-slave from Framingham, Crispus Attacks

was the first to die in the Boston Massacre (1770),

which some historians mark as the beginning of

the American Revolutionary War. Attucks led a
j small group of colonists to a British garrison on
1 King Street in Boston. One of the British soldiers
i panicked and fired. Attucks was the first to fall.

In 1851 Boston Black leaders William C. Nell,

Charles Remond, Lewis Hayden, and Joshua B.

Smith petitioned the state legislature for the erec-
tion of a monument in memory of Attucks.

Thirty-seven years later, in 1888, their request was

honored when a monument to the victims of the

massacre was erected on Boston Common, where

it stands today.

121

Crispus Attucks statue of the Boston Massacre

Black Minutemen Peter Salem of Framingham, Job Potomea and Is-

aiah Barjonah of Stoneham, Cuff Whitemore of
Cambridge, Prince of Brookline, and Pompey of
Braintree were among the Blacks in greater Boston
who joined the Minutemen before the battle of
Lexington, April 19, 1775. Salem is remembered
for fatally shooting British officer Major Pitcairn
during the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Bucks of America During the American Revolutionary War, the

Bucks of America, commanded by George Mid-
dleton, a fiery Black resident of Boston, was one
of two all-Black units. The Bucks of America were
hailed throughout the Commonwealth for their I
bravery and performance at the Battle of Bunker t
Hill in June 1775. ,|

122

19th Century

Richard Seavers, a Black Boston seaman who en- Refused to Fight

tered the British navy prior to the outbreak of the Against the U.S.

War of 1812, refused to fight against the United
States and was therefore sentenced to England's
Dartmoor Prison.

There were two all-Black units, the Massasoit
Guards and the Liberty Guards in Boston in the
1850s, but they were not attached to the militia of
the State because there was opposition "to there
being any Colored men belonging to the State Mi-
litia." Many of these men eventually joined the
Massachusetts regiments that fought in the Civil
War battles.

The 54th Massachusetts Regiment was the first
Black unit organized in the North during the Civil
War. Led by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, member
of a prominent white abolitionist family, this unit
displayed heroism unsurpassed by any fighting
group. North or South, most notably during the

Two All-Black
Fighting Units

54th Massachusetts
Regiment

assault on Fort Wagner in Charleston, S.C. An ^^^^ Massachusetts

imposing bas-relief sculpture by Augustus Saint- Regiment
Gaudens, the 54th Regiment Memorial, stands
opposite the State House at Beacon and Park
Streets. The heroic soldiers memorialized on the
monument are: Lewis Clark, William H, Morris,
Henry Albert, Charles Van Allen, John W. Wins-
low, Lewis C. Green, Samuel Sufshay, James
Buchanan, William Wilson, Thomas R. Ampey,
John Hall, Joseph D. Wilson, Jason Champain,
Cyrus Krunkleton, George Vanderpool, William
Brady, Charles M. Holloway, William Thomas,
Henry F. Burghardt, Abraham Brown, John Tan-
ner, Andrew Clark, Thomas Bowman, Charles S.
Gamrell, Edward Williams, Henry Craig, Lewis J.
Locard, Robert McJohnson, Cornelius Watson,
Josephus Curry, Charles E. Nelson, Franklin Wil-
lis, Cornelius Price, William Edgerly, Elisha Bur-
kett, John Miller, Richard M. Foster, Albert
Evans, Augustus Lewis, Anthony Scheneck, Wil-
liam S. Everson, Samuel Ford, Henry King, Willis
J. Smith, Henry Dennis, William Henry Harrison
II, John H. Johnson, Edward Darks, Edward
Hines, James P. Johnson, Benjamin Hogan, and
George E. Jackson. The 54th Regiment was re-
cently portrayed in the film "Glory."

Sergeant William Carney of New Bedford, a Congressional Medal of

member of the famed 54th Massachusetts Regi- Honor Winner

ment during the Civil War, was the first African-
American awarded the Congressional Medal of
Honor for bravery at the battle of Fort Wagner in
July 1863. The U.S. flag he saved during the bat-
tle still hangs in the Hall of Flags at the State
House in Boston.

The 55th Massachusetts Regiment commanded by 55th Massachusetts

Colonel Hallowell of Boston acquitted itself val- Regiment
iantly during many Civil War battles, particularly
in the battle of Honey Hill in South Carolina,
where its determined resistance to advancing
southern forces saved the lives of numerous Fed-
eral troops. In 1986, 19 skeletons unearthed in
South Carolina were determined to be the remains
of men of the Massachusetts 55th. The remains
were re-interred in a special Memorial Day service
on May 30, 1989, in Beaufort, South Carolina.

125

Black Nurse in Civil War Susie King Taylor (1848-19?), who distinguished

herself as a nurse with the Union forces during the
Civil War, moved to Boston in 1874 to work as a
laundress. In 1886 she helped organize Corps 67
of the Boston Branch of the Women's Relief
Corps, the auxiliary to the Grand Army of the Re-
public, assuming the presidency in 1893. In 1896
she identified many veterans living in Boston. In
1902 she published her autobiography in Boston
entitled. Reminiscences of My Life in Camp: With
the 33rd United States Colored Troops.

20th Century

Heroic Soldier Sergeant Wilham E. Carter (1858-1918), for whom

the Carter Playground in Boston's South End is
named, served in the Spanish-American War, the
Massachusetts National Guard from 1899 to 1917,
and in World War I, where he was killed in action
in October 1918.

In 1906 James H. Wolff, a lawyer and Civil War
veteran, was elected head of the Massachusetts
Commandery of the Grand Army of the RepubHc,
a largely white organization.

Early Career Officer Colonel Frank M. Snowden (1885-1947) of Boston

joined the U.S. Army in 1907 and rose through
the ranks, in an era when few Blacks became of-
ficers, to become a colonel. After leaving the ser-
vice in 1945 he served as civilian executive of the
First Service Command (U.S. Army) in Boston.

World War I Lieutenants When the 17th Provisional Training Regiment at

Des Moines, Iowa, graduated 278 Blacks as Army
lieutenants at the beginning of World War I,
eleven of the graduates were from Massachusetts
and two of them, Oliver Lewis and Edward Dug-
ger, were African-Americans from Roxbury. Ed-
ward Dugger helped to organize and gain official
recognition for a Black Massachusetts National
Guard unit, the 372nd Infantry, after his return
from fighting in France and his discharge from the
Army at the end of the war.

Head of Massachusetts
Commandery

126

Edward O. Gourdin sworn in by Gov. Foster Furcolo, 1957

Edward O. Gourdin commanded the 372nd Regi- Commander at Pearl Harbor
ment during World War II and was commander
of ground defense at Pearl Harbor. After the war
he served as a member of the Secretary of War's
Discharge Review and later as Acting Judge Ad-
vocate of the Massachusetts National Guard. He
later became a judge in the Roxbury District Court
and a member of the Massachusetts Judicial
Court.

Royal BoUing, Sr., was awarded the Purple Heart, Purple Heart Recipient

the Combat Infantry Badge, four battle stars, and
the third highest military award for valor, the Sil-
ver Star, as the result of his outstanding service
during the 92nd Infantry Division's campaign in
Italy during World War II.

127

David L. Ramsay

Valiant Navy Admiral

Gerald E. Thomas of Natick and Boston rose to
become a Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy. His first
command was in 1962 aboard the USS Imper-
vious, an ocean minesweeper operating in the
western Pacific. He also commanded the De-
stroyer Squadron NINE and the Cruiser-De-
stroyer Group FIVE. Thomas's medals and awards
include the Navy Occupation Service Medal with
Europe Clasp, The National Defense Service
Medal with Bronze Star, The Armed Services Ex-
peditionary Medal (Vietnam), and the Vietnam
Service Medal with two Bronze Stars.

Air Hero in Vietnam

David L. Ramsay, born and raised in Boston, a
graduate of English High School and the U.S.
Military Academy at West Point, rose to become
a captain in the U.S. Air Force. The recipient of
many military honors, including the Air Force's
highest award, the Distinguished Flying Cross, he
died in battle while piloting a fighter jet in Viet-
nam in 1970. In 1973, a decade before the nation
unveiled its first monument to the Vietnam war
dead, a group of Roxbury veterans named Bos-
ton's only Black VFW post at 54 Woodrow Ave-
nue in Dorchester for Ramsay. Located at the
corner of Washington and Ball Streets in lower
Roxbury, near Melnea Cass Boulevard, the David
L. Ramsay Park has been established in his mem-
ory.

Rear Admiral in U.S. Navy

Wendell Norman Johnson of Boston rose to the
rank of Rear Admiral in the U.S. Navy in 1983
and was Commander (1987-1989) of the U.S. Na-
val Base in Charleston, South Carolina, the third
largest naval base in the United States.

128

Religion

19th Century

While Black people in Boston attended white Church in Faneuil Hall

churches after the American Revolution, increas-
ing incidents of racial discrimination moved them
to request the use of Faneuil Hall for religious
meetings. Permission was granted in 1789 and the
non-denominational prayer services led to the es-
tablishment of the first independent Black church
group in Boston in 1805, the African Baptist
Church.

In December 1806 Rev. Thomas Paul (who had First Black Church

been an "exhorter" of scripture passages since age
sixteen) formally organized and became the first
minister of the first Black church in Boston at the
African Meeting House on Beacon Hill.

Rev. Leonard Grimes, who became the minister
of Twelfth Baptist Church in 1848, led this his-
toric church through the turbulent years of anti-
slavery (1850-1865), serving the church until his
death in 1873. Estabhshed in 1840, Twelfth Bap-
tist is 150 years old.

Bishop James A. Healy, born of mixed parentage Catholic Bishop

on a Georgia plantation, served as a priest in Bos-
ton's Irish immigrant neighborhoods in the 1850s.
'He was named Chancellor of the Boston Arch-
diocese in 1855 and Bishop of the Portland
(Maine) Diocese in 1875.

Rev. John Sella Martin, who served as pastor of Preacher at Tremont Temple

the Joy Street Baptist Church (African Meeting
House) around 1859, often served as guest
preacher at the Tremont Temple, a mostly white

Builder of the
Twelfth Baptist
Church

129

Preacher at Tremont Temple

congregation. He addressed worshippers at thei
Temple on January 1, 1863, when news of Presi-
dent Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation
reached Boston. In 1861 he had met with Lincoln
to oppose the sending of ex-slaves back to Africa.

Rev. Thomas Paul

130

Rev. Peter Randolph

In 1871 ex-slaves from Virginia, led by Rev. Peter Ex-Slave Founded Church

Randolph, founded Ebenezer Baptist Church,
which celebrated 100 years of service in Boston in
1981.

n Myrtle Baptist Church in Newton, founded in Oldest Suburban Churches
! 1874, and St. John's Baptist Church in Woburn,
I founded in 1886, are the oldest Black churches in
suburban Boston.

In 1894, at the Church of St. Augustine, Oscar
Lieber Mitchell was the first African-American or-
dained into the priesthood of the Episcopal
Church in Boston.

20th Century

Rev. John H. Dorsey, the second African-Ameri-
j can priest in the American Catholic Church, cele-
' brated Mass at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in
Boston's South End on August 17, 1902. The Pilot
j said of his stay in Boston: "This young priest's visit
to Boston has benefitted all classes." The Guard-
ian, Boston's Black newspaper, said: "The Rev.
j Father Dorsey was received with much enthusiasm
[by the Catholic people of this city."

The Church of St. Augustine and St. Martin, lo-
icated in lower Roxbury, was founded by Black
'Episcopalians in 1908. In 1981, after 73 years as
a mission church of the Society of St. John the
Evangelist, it became an independent church
within the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts.

First Black
Episcopal Priest

Celebrant at Holy Cross
Cathedral

Early Episcopalians

131

St. Cyprian's Episcopal Church

St. Cyprian's St. Cyprian's Episcopal Church was the first

Episcopal Church church built in Roxbury by Black people. Serving

as a haven for immigrants from the West Indian
islands in the early 1900s, St. Cyprian's was estab-
lished in 1913. The cornerstone of its present
building on Tremont Street was laid in 1923 and
the church was dedicated in 1924.

Peoples Baptist Church Over $130,000 for missionary and educational

programs was raised by Rev. David S. Klugh of
Peoples Baptist Church between 1918 and 1930.

Malcolm X Malcolm X, formerly Malcolm Little (1925-1965),

was one of the most fiery, controversial leaders of
his time and one of the major Black leaders of the
20th century. Growing up in Boston during the
1940s, he became involved in criminal activities

132

which landed him a ten-year prison sentence.
While in prison, he joined the Black Muslims. Pa-
roled in 1952, he helped found the first Nation of
Islam Temple (Temple 1 1 on Intervale Street) in
Boston in 1954. Malcolm X was a world-renowned
and respected defender of Black rights and pro-
moter of Black self-empowerment.

Dr. Howard Thurman, appointed Dean of the Leading Theologian

Chapel at Boston University, became the first Af-
rican-American in the country to serve as an ad-
ministrative dean and spiritual leader at a
predominantly white university. He served in this
position from 1955 to 1965. A distinguished
preacher and religious thinker, he shared insight
into the religious experience of African-Ameri-
cans with a body of books, essays, poetry, and
sound recordings that crossed the boundaries of
race and religion.

A jazz concert of sacred music by the legendary First Jazz Concert

Duke Ellington and his orchestra was performed in Boston Churcli

at Union Methodist Church in July 1966, the first
time a jazz performance had been held in a Bos-
ton church.

The Rev. John M. Burgess of Boston became the First Black

first African-American diocesan Bishop of the Episcopal Bishop

Episcopal Church in the United States in 1968.

Rev. Howard Thurman

Rev. Richard Owens

Nation of Islam Leader Minister Louis Farrakhan, raised in Roxbury and

a 1950 graduate of English High School, has been
the national leader of the Nation of Islam since
1977, following the death of the founder of the
Nation, Elijah Muhammad. While viewed by some
as controversial, Minister Farrakhan and the Na-
tion of Islam have been outspoken proponents of
economic self-help and self-determination for Af-
rican-Americans, thereby making an important
contribution to the economic empowerment of
"people of color." In Boston, Minister Don Mu-
hammad continues this tradition as the leader of
the Nation and is a recognized and respected ad-
vocate for African-Americans in Boston.

In 1980 Rev. Richard M. Owens completed 43
years of pastoring the historic Peoples Baptist
Church, giving him the longest tenure for a Black
minister in Boston's history. He was the first Black
elected President of the American Baptist Con-
vention of Massachusetts in 1969.

Longest Tenure for
a Black Minister

134

Charles Street AME Church, Charles Street, Beacon Hill, in
the 1 9th century

In 1983 Charles Street A.M.E. Church celebrated Charles Street

its 150th anniversary. Founded in 1833 by Bos- A.M.E. Church

ton's 19th-century Black community on Beacon
Hill, it moved to its present site in upper Roxbury
in 1939, the last Black church to move out of the
Beacon Hill area.

In 1988 Columbus Avenue A.M.E. Zion Church Scene of "Boston Riot"

celebrated its 150th anniversary. Moving to its
present site on Columbus Avenue in 1903, it was
the scene of the famous "Boston Riot" in July
1903, when Boston's militant equal rights leader
William Monroe Trotter and Booker T. Washing-
ton, the conservative educator from the South,
disagreed on a human rights strategy for Black
Americans.

135

Rev. Barbara C. Harris

First Female Bishop The Reverend Barbara C. Harris was elected Suf- i

fragan Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Mas-
sachusetts in September 1988 and was consecrated ^
bishop in February 1989. She was the first woman, j
Black or white, to be elected a bishop in the An-
glican Communion.

Rev. Michael E. Haynes Rev. Michael E. Haynes, installed as Senior Pas-

tor of the Twelfth Baptist Church on October 24,
1965, on the 125th anniversary of the historic i
church, has served in that capacity for 25 years.
In addition to his ministry, he served 17 years on
the state Parole Board and in the 1970s as a state :
representative from Roxbury. Currently he is a :
member of the Fair Housing Commission.

136

The number of Black churches in Boston grew 90 Black Churches

from two in 1830 to five by 1850. One was the
Free Church, later named Tremont Temple, estab-
lished in 1836 as an integrated church protesting
segregated seating in Boston's white churches. To-
day there are over 90 churches in Boston that
"identify with the African-American ethnic
group."

Rev. David T. Shannon became the first African- Theological School President

American to head the 184-year-old Andover New-
ton Theological School in Newton in 1991. This
school is the nation's oldest Protestant graduate
school of theology.

Science/Technology/Medicine

18th Century

Slave Introduces The ravages of smallpox were lessened in the 1700s

Smallpox Vaccination because Onesimus, a slave to Cotton Mather in

Boston, introduced an African vaccination prac-
tice that had made his body immune to the small-
pox virus. Dr. Zabdiel Boylston of Boston
inoculated some 240 people, following Onesimus's
description of infecting healthy people to estab-
lish an immune reaction to the virus; only six j
came down with smallpox. During the American
Revolutionary War this method of inoculation was
used to prevent soldiers from contracting the dis-
ease.

19th Century

Inventor of Whaling Harpoon Lewis Temple (c. 1810-1854), a blacksmith in New

Bedford from 1830 to 1854, invented and manu-
factured a whaling harpoon in 1848 that has been
referred to as "the single most important invention
in the history of whaling." The Temple Toggle, as
it was called, became the standard whale har-
poon, and 13,000 were manufactured between
1848 and 1868. It is credited with increasing sig-
nificantly the number of whales caught and with
adding to the economic development of New Eng-
land during the region's whaling period.

Master Shipbuilder John Mashow (1805-1893) was a master ship-

builder in New Bedford from 1840 to 1860. Con-
tributing greatly to the U.S. maritime industry and
to maritime architecture, he is credited with draft-
ing and modeling some 100 ocean vessels, super-
vising the construction of some 60 whale and
merchant vessels, and building more than 25
schooners.

138

Daniel Laing and Isaac H. Snowden of Boston Barred from

and Martin R. Delany of Pittsburgh, in 1850, were Harvard Medical School

the first Blacks admitted to Harvard Medical
School. All three were dismissed, however, in
1851, when white students protested their pres-
ence; and the Dean of the medical school felt that
"this experiment" proved "that intermixing of the
white and Black races ... is distasteful to a large
portion of the class and injurious to the interests
of the school."

In 1854 J. V. De Grasse (1825-1868) became the Medical First

first Black physician admitted to the Massachu-
setts Medical Association.

Dimock Community Health Center in the Rox- Dimock Community

bury section of Boston is the oldest health facility Health Center

in the city oriented to the care of Black and low-
income people. Founded in 1863 as the New Eng-
land Hospital for Women and Children to provide
medical training for white women, the hospital
also included in its mission the provision of health
care for low-income residents. In 1879 Mary Eliza
Mahoney became the first African-American nurse
in America when she graduated from this institu-
tion. Renamed Dimock Community Health Cen-
ter in 1969, this 127-year-old hospital, presently
directed by Jackie Jenkins Scott, is a $7.5 million
comprehensive health and human service opera-
tion. Through preventive, diagnostic, and treat-
ment programs, Dimock has enhanced the quality
of life for ethnic minority residents for more than
20 years. The Center also offers low-cost space to
13 other nonprofit institutions, including centers
for day care and job training.

The first African-American female graduate of a M.D. Degree for Black Woman

medical school was Rebecca Lee, who received an
M.D. degree from the New England Female Med-
ical College in Boston in 1864.

Mary Eliza Mahoney (1845-1926), acknowledged First Black Trained Nurse

to be the first Black trained nurse in America,
graduated from the New England Hospital for
Women and Children, now the Dimock Commu-
nity Health Center, in 1879. While she was one of
the few early Black members of The American

139

Mary Eliza Mahoney

First Black Trained Nurse

Nurses Association, she helped to organize The
National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses
in 1908.

First Black Pharmacist

Robert H. Carter of New Bedford (and great-
grandfather of author/historian Robert C. Hay-
den) was the first Black to practice pharmacy in
Massachusetts, receiving his certification from the
Commonwealth in 1886. He owned two drugstores
in Boston between 1895 and 1905.

140

Lewis Latimer

Lewis Latimer (1848-1928), born the son of a fu- Inventor of Light Bulb

gitive slave (George Latimer) in Boston, became a Filament
significant inventor with his development of an
improved process for manufacturing the electric
light bulb filament. He received a U.S. patent for
his filament and became a member of Thomas
Edison's research and development team (the Edi-
son Pioneers) for over 20 years.

Jan E. Matzeliger of Lynn invented a shoe lasting Revolutionized Shoemaking
machine in 1888 that revolutionized the making of
shoes. His invention led to the formation of the
United Shoe Machinery Corporation in 1890.

Nellie Brown Mitchell was the inventor of the Woman Inventor

phoneterion, a device designed to aid "persons
whose purity of tone is impaired because they can-
not keep the tongue in place while singing." Mrs.
Mitchell was the wife of Charles L. Mitchell, a
prominent printer and community leader in the
late 19th century.

141

Dr. Thomas W. Patrick, Sr.

Dr. Solomon C. Fuller

Patrick School of Pharmacy Dr. Thomas W. Patrick, pharmacist, founded the

Patrick School of Pharmacy in Boston in 1893.
Until 1936 he operated the school, where some
5,000 Bostonians, mostly first- and second-gener-
ation Italian, Irish, and Jewish immigrants, were
trained to become certified pharmacists.

Joseph Lee of Boston received a U.S. patent in
1895 for a machine that made bread crumbs for
the food industry. Several years later he received a
second patent for the first machine to make bread
dough.

20th Century

First Black Psychiatrist Dr. Solomon Carter Fuller (1872-1953), acknowl-

edged as the first Black to practice psychiatry in
America, graduated from Boston University's
Medical School in 1897 and practiced psychiatry
in Boston and Framingham until 1937.

Leading Dentist Dr. W. Alexander Cox had a large dental practice

among Black and white patients in Cambridge
during the early 1900s. He was the founder and
president of the dental section of the National
Medical Association. In the late 1800s Dr. Cox
was owner and publisher of the Advocate, the only
newspaper owned and operated by an African-
American in New England.

Inventor of Bread Crumb
Machine

142

Dr. Henry Lewis of Chelsea was appointed to the
Massachusetts Board of Veterinary Physicians in
1908.

Black Veterinarian

Plymouth Hospital and Nurses' Training School,
founded and operated by Dr. Cornelius Garland,
a Black doctor, from 1908 to 1928, contributed to
the health care needs of Blacks and to Black com-
munity development during the first quarter of the
1900s. The hospital building still stands on East
Springfield Street in Boston.

Plymouth Hospital

Operating room at Plymouth Hospital

143

Nursing graduates of Plymouth Hospital i

;

Pioneer Activist Doctor Dr. Louis T. Wright (1891-1952), a Harvard Med- ^

ical School graduate in 1915 and a leading 20th- :
century Black physician, pioneered in the struggle ]
for adequate health care and medical facilities un-
til his death in 1952. His first struggle was in Bos- ;
ton when he was denied the opportunity to attend ;
pregnant women and deliver infants with his Har-
vard classmates at Boston-Lying-in Hospital. "I
paid my tuition," said Wright in his petition, "and \
I want what the catalogue calls for, namely [a po- \
sition in] obstetrics at Boston-Lying-in." Dr.
Wright won his case.

144

Dr. William A. Hinton

Dr. William A. Hinton (1883-1959) directed the Medical Breakthrough

Wasserman Laboratory of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts at Harvard Medical School from
1915 to 1949 and developed the famous Hinton
test for syphilis, which was used to diagnose this
venereal disease for over 40 years.

'Dr. Jessie G. Garnett (1897-1976) was the first First Black Female Dentist

Black woman dentist in Boston. A 1919 graduate

of Tufts Dental School and the first Black woman

to graduate from Tufts Dental, she practiced for

50 years until 1970. Dr. Garnett once recalled,

"When I first started, patients came to the office

and saw me. They asked for the dentist. 'I'm the

dentist,' I said."

145

South End Physician Dr. John B. Hall, Sr., served as the secretary of

the South End Medical Society (a group of white
physicians) from its beginning in 1926 until 1952.
During his career as a prominent South End phy-
sician. Dr. Hall held posts as medical examiner
for the Massachusetts Insurance Department and
with the advisory council of the Massachusetts
Public Health Department in the 1930s and '40s.

First Nurses at City Hospital In 1929 two African-American women, Frances

Harris and Letitia Campfield, became the first
Blacks to be admitted to the School of Nursing at
Boston City Hospital.

Bay State Medical Association African-American doctors, dentists, and pharma-
cists organized the Bay State Medical Association
in 1930 to further their professional development
and to provide charitable services to their com-
munity. The membership included more than 50
medical practitioners and was in existence until
1942.

Dr. John B. Hall, Jr. Dr. John B. Hall, Jr., became the first Black doc-

tor accepted as an intern at Boston City Hospital
in 1931.

Distinguished Female Dentist Dr. Mary Crutchfield Wright was the only woman

to pass the Massachusetts Civil Service examina-
tion for dentists in state institutions in 1932.

Renowned Chemist Dr. Henry A. Hill (1915-1979) was a distin-

guished chemist locally and nationally from 1942
until 1979. He was the first African-American to
become Chairman of the Northeastern Section of
the American Chemical Society and later became
President of the American Chemical Society. In
1961 he estabhshed his own organic chemistry re-
search company, Riverside Research Laboratory in
Cambridge. Previously he held several manage-
ment positions in organic chemistry research at
major research labs in the Boston area.

Medical Director In 1949 Dr. Charles D. Bonner (1917-1990) be-

came the first Black physician appointed to the
staff" at Boston City Hospital. In 1968 he was ap-
pointed Medical Director of Youville Hospital in

146

Cambridge. In 1979 he was elected president of Medical Director

the Massachusetts Heart Association. Dr. Bonner
gained national recognition for his methods of re-
habilitating stroke victims.

Harold B. Frye (1902-1989), a civil engineer with Engineer/Bridge Designer

the Massachusetts Department of Public Works
for over 40 years, was responsible for the design
of many bridges throughout the state during his
career. Born in Boston, he graduated in 1925 with
a degree in engineering from Northeastern Univer-
sity and in 1926 with a master's degree from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During his
career he served two terms as president of the
Massachusetts State Engineers and Associates.
Frye was a founding member of Chi Chapter of
Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity in Boston in 1924. He
designed the Bragga Bridge in Fall River, Massa-
chusetts.

Harold Frye

Dr. Charles D. Bonner

147

Microwave Associates Microwave Associates, Inc. (now called M/A-

COM) was founded in 1950 in Boston by two Af-
rican-American engineers, Louis W. Roberts and
Richard M. Walker, and Vess Chigas (a Greek-
American). In 1956 the company offered public
stock and many of Boston's African-Americans
invested. Microwave Associates became a multi-
national company with sales over $500 million.

Harvard Medical Graduate In 1951 Dr. Mildred Jefferson became the first Af-
rican-American woman to graduate from Harvard
Medical School.

Distinguished Psychiatrist Dr. Alvin Poussaint, Associate Professor of Psy-

chiatry at the Harvard Medical School, is a na-
tionally recognized authority on the social and
psychological dynamics related to African-Ameri-
can life and culture in this country. For more than
20 years his numerous articles on male-female re-
lations, crime, teenage issues, substance abuse,
and the Black family have appeared in leading
magazines and journals. Since 1984 he has been a
production consultant for the popular television
program, the Bill Cosby Show.

First Black Professor of Dr. Joseph L. Henry was the first African-Amer-

Dentistry ican professor at the Harvard School of Dental

Medicine with his appointment in 1974. He cre-
ated the department of oral diagnosis and oral ra-
diology which he still heads. In 1978 Dr. Henry
became the first African-American to become an
Associate Dean at the Dental School.

Orthopaedic Surgeon-in-Chief In 1978 when Dr. Augustus A. White II became

Orthopaedic Surgeon-in-Chief at Boston's Beth
Israel Hospital, which is affiliated with Harvard
Medical School, he became the first African-
American to serve as chairman of a clinical de-
partment in a major teaching hospital. He is the
senior co-author of Clinical Biomechanics of the
Spine, the first text of its kind on this topic.

Dr. Kenneth C. Edelin was the first African-
American physician to direct a major clinical de-
partment at Boston City Hospital when he was
named Director of Obstetrics and Gynecology in

Three Firsts for
Black Physician

148

1978, a position he held until 1989. Also, as
Chairman and Professor of Obstetrics and Gyne-
cology at Boston University School of Medicine,
he was the first to head a clinical department at
that institution. In October 1989 he was elected
President of the Planned Parenthood Federation
of America, another first for an African-Ameri-
can.

Three Firsts for
Black Physician

In 1979 chemical engineer James Porter (Ph.D.)
founded his own firm. Energy and Environmental
Engineering, Inc., in Cambridge, which became
the first minority-owned firm in the nation to re-
ceive U.S. Environmental Agency laboratory con-
tracts. Before founding his own firm, he
established the National Organization for the Ad-
vancement of Black Chemists and Chemical En-
gineers.

Distinguished Chemical
Engineer

The first African-American to hold the position of
Commissioner of PubHc Health in Massachusetts
was Dr. Bailus Walker, appointed in 1984. He was
followed by another African-American, Dr. Deb-
orah Prothrow-Stith, Commissioner from 1987 to
1989, the first woman to hold this position.

Commissioners of
Public Health

Louis Roberts became the Director of Transpor-
tation Systems Center at the U.S. Department of
Transportation headquarters in Cambridge in 1985
where he served until 1989. From 1967-1970 he
was Chief of the Optics and Microwave Labora-
tory of the Electronic Research Center for the Na-
tional Aeronautics and Space Administration in
Cambridge. Roberts holds 11 U.S. patents on
electronic devices.

Inventor of
Electronic Devices

Louis Roberts

U.S. Secretary of Health, Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, formerly president of

Education and Welfare Morehouse College of Medicine, was appointed by

President George Bush in 1989 as Secretary of
Health, Education and Welfare. Dr. Sullivan
graduated from Boston University's School of
Medicine and spent the early years of his career
as a medical researcher at Massachusetts General
Hospital and at Boston City Hospital where he
was a research fellow until 1971.

150

Sports

20th Century

Boxer George "Little Chocolate" Dixon (1870- "Little Chocolate" Dixon

1908) of Boston was the first Black to win both
the featherweight and bantamweight champion-
ships.

Marshall W. "Major" Taylor of Worcester, Mas- Greatest Cyclist

sachusetts, was the greatest cyclist in the country

in the 1890s and early 1900s. He was World

Professional Bicycle Champion between 1908 and

1910.

The wooden golf tee was invented by a Black Bos- Inventor of Golf Tee

ton dentist, Dr. George Grant, who received his
U.S. patent in 1899. He was also a member of the
faculty at the Dental School of Harvard Univer-
sity.

William H. Lewis, an Ail-American football star Ail-American Football Star

at Harvard, is credited with inventing the "roving
center" defense strategy. He went on to a distin-
guished legal and political career in Boston.

Sam Langford of Boston and Cambridge had by "Finest Boxer

his own count 650 boxing bouts between 1902 and to Wear Gloves"

1926; 250 of his fights were officially recorded.
Standing just 5 feet 7 inches, and weighing 165
pounds — the size of a middleweight — Langford
fought as a heavyweight and held the so-called
Negro and Mexican heavyweight titles, in an era
when promoters would not match a white fighter
against a Black. Fighting the top Black heavy-
weights, he lost a narrow 15-round decision to
Jack Johnson in Chelsea in 1906. White journal-
ists called him "next to Jack Dempsey, the finest
boxer to ever put on a pair of gloves."

151

AFRICAN-AMERICAN INVENTORS

G.F.GRANT

GOLF TEE

Patenied Dec i:.

/d^-k^ ^^^^^^

Patent drawing of golf tee invented
by Dr. George Grant

Sam Langford (left), Joe Walcott
(right). Photo taken in 1931; they
fought in 1903.

152

Will "Cannonball" Jackman

Leon L. Furr, Sr., was a 3-letter man in hockey Dazzling Player on Ice

at Medford High School and captain of the Med-
ford hockey team in 1917. Playing both center and
forward positions, Furr was one of the most daz-
zling and competent players on the ice in New
England in the early 1900s. In 1977 he was named
as an Honorary Member of the Boston Bruins
professional hockey team.

In 1919 Charles H. Jackson, a mechanic in Bos- Inventor of Diving Suit

ton, invented a diving suit used to set a new
world's record in 1920 for deep sea diving. John F.
Turner, an internationally known diver, reached a
depth of 360 feet while diving with Jackson's suit.

Edward "Ned" Gourdin (1897-1966), as a Harvard World's Record Holder

athlete, set a new world's record in the running
broad jump — 25 feet, 3 inches — the first hu-
man to leap beyond 25 feet. A graduate of Cam-
bridge Latin High and Harvard Law School (1924)
he was crowned National Amateur Athletic Union
Junior 100-yard dash champion (1920) and Na-
tional Pentathlon champion (1921 and 1922). In
1952 he was appointed as a Special Justice of the
Roxbury District Court, the third Black to serve
on the state bench. In 1958 he was appointed to
the Massachusetts Superior Court.

Will "Cannonball" Jackman of Boston is a legend-
ary baseball great of the old Colored Baseball
League during the early 1900s. For seventeen years

Legendary Baseball Great

153

Legendary Baseball Great

Jackman pitched the baseball like his nickname.
He played with the Philadelphia Colored Giants
during the 1920s and 1930s and was a stellar at-
traction on the semi-pro diamonds of New Eng-
land. Later playing for the Boston Tigers,
Jackman attracted people from all over New Eng-
land to sandlot games in Cambridge, Quincy,
Brockton, Lynn, and Boston (at the Carter Play-
ground on Columbus Avenue). Only his "color"
kept him out of the major leagues.

Distinguished Athletes Matthew Bullock, a graduate of Everett High, and

John Shelburne, a Boston English graduate, both
became Ail-American football players at Dart-
mouth College in the early 20th century. Bullock
later returned to coach at Everett High, becoming
the first African-American to serve as a head
coach of a major northern white high school sports
team. Shelburne became Youth Director of the
Robert Gould Shaw House and Executive Director
of its Breezy Meadows Camp in Holliston. Today
in Roxbury the Shelburne Recreational Center is
named in his honor.

Female Olympic Star During the early 1930s Louise Stokes of Medford

was among the finest female track stars in the
country. She was a member of the U.S. Olympic
Team in 1932 and won the Women's National
A.A.U. 50-yard dash championship in Chicago in
1933.

Leading Tennis Player Titus Sparrow was a leading tennis player in Bos-

ton and New England in the 1930s and 1940s. He
was a tennis official of the old Boston Tennis Club
and its off"spring, the Roxbury Sportsmen. He was
the winner of numerous trophies, including the
New England Gardner Clase Bowl, awarded an-
nually by the New England Tennis Association for
exceptional contributions to the game. Sparrow
Park in Boston's South End is named for this ten-
nis giant who taught the game to Black and white
youngsters for over 30 years.

Tennis Champion Isabel Bland of Medford was appointed Field Sec-

retary of the American Tennis Association of New
England in 1931. Mrs. Bland was a member of
the Boston Tennis Club from early 1920s to early

154

1940s. She was the leading woman titlest in the
Colored New England Amateur and Open Tour-
nament.

Tennis Champion

Louis Montgomery was unanimously elected cap- Football Great

tain of the Brockton High School football team in
December of 1935. Montgomery, who went on to
lead Boston College to a berth in the Cotton Bowl
in 1941, was the first Black captain of the Brock-
ton team since Ed Mallory in 1903.

The Bay State Golf Association was founded in Bay State

I 1938 by Black golfers from Medford and Boston. Golf Association

In these early years they played at Sagamore

Springs in Lynnfield, one of the few golf courses

open to Blacks. Bay State's first annual tourna-
i ment was held in 1940 at Ponkapoag Golf Club

in Canton. This 52-year-old association continues

each summer with its annual tournaments and

fund-raising activities to promote the game among

young people.

Eddie Dugger of Medford was National Collegiate High Hurdles Champ

Athletic Association high hurdles champion in

1940.

155

First Black Celtics Star Chuck Cooper was the first Black player on the

Boston Celtics basketball team, appearing with
them in the 1940s.

Boston Red Sox Scout Ralph "Stodie" Ward, formerly of Cambridge and

a star third baseman for the old Boston Tigers,
volunteered in the 1950s to work and scout for the
Boston Red Sox to help them find Black players.

Record-Setting In 1953 a one-mile relay team of Bobby Murphy,

Relay Team Larry Smith, George Hubbard, and Charlie Jen-

kins of Rindge Technical High in Cambridge set a
national record of 3 minutes, 20.9 seconds, which
stood unbeaten nationally for 10 years and for 25
years as a state record.

National ochcolbc/

20.9 .*c. /9J3

National Schoolboy Record holders,
Cambridge Rindge & Technical High,
1953

156

Elijah "Pumpsie" Green

K. C. Jones was a major figure in Boston's profes- Distinguished Player/Coach
sional basketball history as both a player and a of Boston Celtics

coach. As a guard who made defensive play his
hallmark with the Boston Celtics from 1958 to
1967, he had a career total of 2,904 assists and
averaged 7.4 points per game. During his tenure
as coach of the famed Boston Celtics from 1983
to 1988, he led the team to two national champi-
onships in 1983-84 and 1986-87.

Elijah "Pumpsie" Green was the first Black base- First Black

ball player for the Boston Red Sox, playing in the Red Sox Player

infield from 1959-1962.

/John Thomas of Cambridge, while an undergrad- Champion High Jumper

uate at Boston University, was the first high
jumper to clear the seven-foot height. In January
1959 at the Milrose Gardens in Madison Square
Garden he set a world record of 7 feet and Va
inch. He went on to win a bronze medal for the
high jump in the 1960 Olympic Games and a sil-
ver medal in 1964.

157

John Thomas

Sportsman's Tennis Club

Since 1961 Sportsman's Tennis Club, through the
vision and guidance of the club's founder, James
A. Smith, has achieved local, regional and na-
tional fame by developing and promoting junior
tennis programs that have elevated young Black
players to noteworthy competitive levels of tennis
playing in the U.S. Tennis and American Tennis
Association programs.

Legendary Celtic

Bill Russell was both player and coach of the leg-
endary Boston Celtics basketball team for three
seasons, from 1966 through 1969. In two of these
seasons (1967-68 and 1968-69) he led the Cehics
to the National Basketball Association national
championship. As a CeUic from 1956 to 1969, he
averaged 15.1 points per game in 963 regular sea-
son games and was outstanding as a defensive
center.

158

Marvelous Marvin Hagler

Marvelous Marvin Hagler Boxer Marvelous Marvin Hagler of Brockton won

the World Middleweight Championship Title in
September 1980. Previously, in a fighting career
that started in 1973, he had compiled a 49-2-2 re-
cord. He successfully defended the middleweight
title twelve times before losing to Sugar Ray Leon-
ard in 1987.

Memories of Great Black Fifty Sports Years Along Memory Lane: Afro-

Athletes American Sports History — Hometown, Local and

National by Mabray "Doc" Kountze of West Med-
ford was published in 1981. Kountze's book
chronicles hundreds of sports figures, teams, and
events in greater Boston's African-American his-
tory.

160

Elaine Weddington

Peter C. B. Bynoe, a native of Boston, and Ber- First Owners of Pro Team

tram Lee, a Boston businessman, became the first

African-Americans to own a major professional

sports franchise when they purchased the Denver

Nuggets of the National Basketball Association in

1989.

In January 1990 Attorney Elaine Weddington was Red Sox Lawyer

appointed assistant general manager for the Bos- and Manager

ton Red Sox baseball team, a first in the nation
for an African- American woman, but not a first
for Weddington. In August 1988 she was also ap-
pointed associate counsel for the team.

161

Epilogue

On June 23, 1990 Winnie and Nelson Mandela came to Bos-
ton. Nelson had recently been released from a South African
prison after serving 27 years for his activism against apart-
heid. With their visit the Mandelas added a bright, inspiring
chapter to Boston's history.

The Mandelas stand as modern-day heroes who illustrate
poignantly the history of all Black people who struggle to
make great contributions against tremendous odds in a world
where they themselves are not truly free.

163

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Index

Abiel Smith School. See Smith School,
abohtionists, 37-40, 78, 93, 1 12, 123
Academy of Musical Arts, 67
Action for Boston Community Development,

Inc. (ABCD), 27
actors and acting, 62, 66-67, 69-70, 73
Adams, John, 109

Adelphic Union Library Association, 46
Advocate, 113, 142
AFRIC. See Project AFRIC.
Africa, 15, 17, 70, 76, 116, 130
L'Africaine Singers, 67
African

American Female Intelligence Society, 19
American Master Artists in Residency

Program, 74
American Museums Association, 73
Meeting House, 18 (illus.), 28, 37-38, 46, 53,

129

Meeting House in Boston, 58

Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E.). See
individual churches.

Methodist Episcopal Review, 1 1 6

Society for Mutual Aid and Charity, 17
Afro-American Press and Its Editors, 113
Agassiz School, 50
"Aida," 64
Albert, Henry, 125
alcohol. See temperance.
Alexander, Joyce London, 109
All Saints Lutheran Church, 54
Allen, Macon B., 104
Allston

^' J. Henderson, 94

(MA), 27
American

Baptist Convention, 134

Chemical Society, 146

Federation of Labor, 78

Film and Video Festival Award, 59

Nurses' Association, 139

Revolution, 17, 46, 121-122, 129, 138

Society of Planning Officials, 30

Tennis Association, 154
Ancrum School of Music, 66
Anderson, T. J., 74 (illus.)
Andover Newton Theological School, 137
Andrews, Madeline D., 97
Anti-Slavery, 34-35 (illus.), 38, 63

Convention of American Women, 38

Herald, 112
Apex Construction, 90
Appeal, 37
architecture, 88
Aristo Club, 51 (illus.)
Arlington (MA), 56
Armstead, Ron, 44
Armstrong,

Gary, 118

Hemingway Foundation, 26

William O., 94
Arnette, Mae, 67
art and artists, 31, 62-63, 67, 73
Asian

community, 45, 74

Political Caucus, 102
Associated

Day Care Services, 110

Master Barbers of Massachusetts, 83
Aswalos House, 29
Atkins, Thomas, 98 (illus.)
Atlanta (GA), 74
Attucks, Crispus, 121-122 (illus.)
auto sales, 91

Bahamas, 15

Bailey, Parker, 49 (illus.)

Baldwin,

Louis E., 93

Maria L., 50-51 (illus.)
Ball Street, 128
Baltimore (MD), 54, 69

Afro-American, 116
Bank of Boston, 110
banking, 79, 89-90
Banks,

Ellen, 75

Judge Richard, 56

Lawrence, 96

Walden, 94
Bannister, Edward M., 62
Baptist Church,

African, 19, 129

First African, 18

Twelfth, 19, 48, 63, 129, 136

See also individual churches,
barbershops, 17, 79, 83, 93
Barbour, John, 75
baritone. See music.
Barjonah, Isaiah, 122
Barron Chevrolet. 91
"Bar's Fight, The," (poem), 61
baseball, 152-154, 156-158, 161
basketball, 155 (illus.)-157, 159, 161
Batson, Ruth M., 28, 56 (illus.), 58, 119
Bay State

Banner, 58, 118

Golf Association, 155

Medical Association, 146
Beacon

Hill, 17-20, 28, 46, 49-50, 53, 76, 92-94, 129,
135

Street, 125
Beatty, Roger, 75
Beaufort, S.C., 125
Belgrave, Cynthia, 85
Benjamin,

Asher, 76

Edgar P., 106
Benn,

"Banner," 86

Lester, 86
Berlin Jazz Festival, 70
Beth Israel Hospital, 148
bicycles and bicyclists, 151
Bill Cosby Show (TV), 148
"Birth of a Nation," 41
Black

Abolitionists, 53

Corporate Presidents of New England, Inc., •
90

Educators Alliance of Massachusetts

(BEAM), 55
Enterprise, 90

Entertainment Network, 118

Heritage Trail, 52 (illus. )-53

Muslims, 133

"Nativity," 70, 73

Patrolmen's Association, 44

Political Task Force, 102

United Front, 29
"Blackbirds," 69
Blackman, Vernon F, 70

Blackside, Inc., 59

Bland, Isabel, 154-155

B.M.L. Associates, 90

boarding/lodge keepers, 79

Boardman, Reginald, 65 (illus.)

Bob the Chef's Restaurant, 87

Body of Liberties ( 1 64 1 ) , 34

Boiling,

Bruce C, 31, 100 (illus. )-101
Royal, Jr., 100 (illus. )-101
Royal, Sr., 99-100 (illus. )-101 , 127

Bonner, Dr. Charles D., 146-147 (illus.)

Boone, John, 99

bootblack stands, 79

Boston

Afro-American Artists, Inc. (BAAA), 72
Association of Negro Business and

Professional Women's Clubs, 88
Athenaeum, 68
Bank of Commerce, 90
Bar Association, 109
Beacon, 113
Board of

Appeals, 98

Overseers of Public Welfare, 97
Bruins, 153
Cadet Band, 62
Celtics, 156-158
Chronicle, 81 (illus.), 116
City

Council, 32, 92, 94, 96, 98, 101-102

Hall, 23, 100-101, 146, 148, 150

Hospital, 41

Treasurer, 102
Civil Defense, Assistant Director of, 97
College, 155

Colored Waiters Alliance, 78
Committee to Advance the Cause of the
Negro, 41

Common, 34-35 (illus.), 42-43 (illus.), 121

Council, 93
Co-Operator, 113

Corporation Council, Assistant, 107

Courant, 113, 116

Daily Globe, 102, 113, 118

English High School, 53, 117, 128, 134, 154

Equal Rights League, 40

Evening Record, 113

Fair Housing Commission, 44

Foundation, 28, 31

Globe Foundation, 118

Guardian, 115-116

Harbor, 15

Health Commissioner, Assistant, 95
Herald, 90, 113, 117
Housing Authority, 3 1 , 45
Jobs

166

and Community Services, Office of, 100
Coalition, 29

for Boston Residents Ordinance, 29
Juvenile Court, 108
Latin School, 25, 49, 64
Leader, 1 1 3
Licensing Board, 97
Literary and Historical Society, 20
Lying-in Hospital, 144
Massacre, 121-122
Mayor, 98, 100-101

Deputy, 100
Model Cities, 98
Municipal Court, 108-109
Museum of Fine Arts, 68
Negro

Artists Association, 72

Arts Club, 64
Observer, 1 1 3
Opera House, 73
Police

Department, 22

Strike, 22
Pops Orchestra, 69
Public Library, 50, 59-60, 68, 98, 110
Red Sox, 156-157, 161
Redevelopment Authority, 31, 100
"Riot," 135

Safe Neighborhoods Program, 100
School Committee, 44, 46, 50, 54, 57-58, 60,
92, 99

schools, 57, 59. See also individual schools.
Sealer of Weights and Measures, Deputy, 94
Stage Society, 67
Superintendent of

Schools, 59

Schools, Assistant, 57
Symphony

Hall, 65

Orchestra, 72-73
Tax Collector's Office, 95
Tennis Club, 154
Tigers, 154, 156
Transcript, 116
Traveler, 1 1 7

University, 28, 56, 58, 1 17, 133, 157
Law School, 106
Medical School, 142, 149-150
School of Engineering, 79
School of Social Work, 58
School of Theology, 42
Boston's
"Black History," 58
NAACP History, 58
Bowdoin School, 49
Bowman, Thomas, 125
boxing, 151, 160

Boyd, Jim, 118
Boylston

Dr. Zabdiel, 138

Street, 77
Brackett, Edmund, 63
Bradford, Gov. Robert, 108
Brady, William, 125
Bragga Bridge, 147
Braintree (MA), 56
Braithwaite, William Stanley, 64
bread crumb and dough machine, 142
Breezy Meadows Camp, 25, 154
Brighton (MA), 27

High School, 50
Broadnax, Rebecca Lee, 67
Broadway, 68, 70
Brockton (MA), 154, 160

High School, 155
Brooke, Edward W, 97-98 (illus.), 108
Brookline (MA), 55, 65, 122
Brown,

Abraham, 125

E. E., 95

Ronald H., 103

Stanley E., 67, 70

Thomas, 119

William Wells, 62
Bryant, W. W, 94
Buchanan, James, 125
Buckingham Palace, 65
Bucks of America, 122
Budd, Wayne A., 109 (illus.)
Bullock, Matthew, 108 (illus.), 154
Bunker Hill, Battle of, 122
Bunte, Doris, 31, 99 (illus.)
Burgess, Rev. John M., 133
Burghardt, Henry E, 125
Burkett, Elisha, 125
Burnett, Calvin, 72, 74-75
Burnham

Hines and Dilday, 110 (illus. )-l 11

Margaret, 109-110 (illus.)
Bush,

Andrew, 78

President George, 109
busing, 55-56, 100
Bynoe,

John, 26 (illus.)

Peter C. B., 161

Victor, 53

Calloway, Cab, 67

Cambridge (MA), 50, 67, 70, 78, 80, 82, 99,
121-122, 142, 146-147, 149, 151, 154, 156-157
Alderman, 95
City Council, 93, 99

167

Common Council, 49

Highway Commission, 95

Latin Higii School, 153

Street, 17
Campfield, Letitia, 146
Canada, 40, 121
Cantemus Club, 67
Canton (MA), 155
Carlton Hotel, 80
"Carmen," 64
Carney, Sgt. William, 125
Carroll, Jacqueline, 49
Carter,

Dr. Vernon, 54 (illus.)

Playground, 126, 154

President Jimmy, 109

Robert H., 140-141 (illus.)

Sgt. William E., 126
Cass, Melnea, 22-23 (illus.)
catering, 78-79
"Cavalleria Rusticana," 64
CBS News, 116

Center for Community Action, 28-29
Champain, Jason, 125
Chandler, Dana, 74-75
Chappelle, Julius C, 94
Charles Street, 17, 135

African Methodist Episcopal Church, 20, 135
(illus.)

Meeting House, 53
Charleston, S.C., 125, 128
Charlestown (MA), 45

District Court, 106
Chase, Richard, 118
Chelsea (MA), 151
chemist, 146

Cheyney, Captain Thomas, 121
Chicago, 19, 31, 154
Chigas, Vess, 148
China, 116
Chittick School, 56
"Chocolate Revue," 69
Christ, 73

Christian Science Monitor, 118
Christmas Message in Pictures, 68
churches. See individual churches and clergy,
cigar manufacture, 79
civil

defense, 97

rights, 40, 59, 89, 105, 111, 115, 135

War, 19, 40, 63, 77-78, 93, 112, 123, 125-126
Claremont Park, 67
Clark,

Andrew, 125

J. Milton, 93

James, 19

Lewis, 125

Rebecca, 19

clergy, 19, 24, 31-32, 34, 48, 54, 62, 129-137
clerks, department store, 85
Cleveland, President Grover, 105
Clinical Biomechanics of the Spine, 148
Clot el: or The President's Daughter, 62
clothes cleaning business, 77
clothiers, 76, 78. See also tailors.
Coard, Robert M., 27 (illus.)
Coburn, John R, 76

Coburn's Gaming House, 53, 76-77 (illus.)
Coca, Imogene, 69
Cofield, Juan M., 90
Coleman,

Ralf, 66 (illus.)

William T., Ill
Colored

American Magazine, 63, 113-114 (illus. )-l 15
Baseball League, 153-154
Cooperative Publishing Company, 115
New England Amateur and Open

Tournament, 155
Patriots of the American Revolution, 113
Columbus Avenue, 21-22, 43, 57, 67, 85, 87,
135, 154

A.M.E. Church, 135
Commonwealth v. Jennison, 35
Community Benefits Fund, 45
computers and computer software, 90
concerts and concert artists, 62-63, 65, 73
Congregational Publishing Society, 63
Congressional Medal of Honor, 125
construction business, 86, 89-90
Contine, Fannie R., 20
Contractors Association of Boston (CAB), 44,

100
Cook,

Angela Paige, 58

Joseph, 58
Cooper,

Chuck, 155 (illus.)-156

Edward L., 24

Hattie B., Community Center, 22

Ralph, 44
Copley Square High School, 60
Corea, Chick, 72
Cottagers, 32
cotton, 15

Courant. See Boston Courant.

Courtney, Dr. Samuel E., 48

Cox, Dr. W. Alexander, 142

Craig, Henry, 125

Crawford, David E., 79

crime and crime prevention, 28

Cm/5 (magazine), 116

Crite, Allan Rohan, 66 (illus. )-68, 75

Crosby, Estella V., 87

Crosson, Wilhelmina, 50-51

168

Cruz,

John B., Jr., 86 (illus.)

John B., Sr., 86 (illus.)
Cuffe, Paul, 76, 92
Cuffee (ex-slave), 121
Cummington Street, 79
Curley, Mayor James Michael, 23
Curry, Josephus, 125

dance, 67, 69-70
Darks, Edward, 125
Dartmoor Prison, 123
Dartmouth

College, 60, 154

Street, 22
Davenport, Mildred, 69-70
David

A. Ellis School, 103

L. Ramsay Park, 128
Davis

Funeral Home, 83

Helen Y, 27

Sammy, Jr., 70
Dawson, Alan, 86
day-care service, 21, 25, 29, 110
Dearborn School District, 56
Declaration of Rights, 35
decorations and medals, 125, 127-128
DeGrasse, J. V., 139
Delany, Martin R., 139
Demarest, James Gloucester, 62
Democratic

National Convention, 95, 103

Party, 96, 102
Dempsey, Jack, 151
Dennis, Henry, 125

dentists and dentistry, 106, 142, 145-146, 148,
151

Denver Nuggets, 161
Depression, 22, 105
Derr, Milton, 75
Desire (ship), 15
Detroit, 19

Digital Equipment Corporation, 89

Dilday, Judith, 110-111

Dimock Community Health Center, 139

discrimination, 37, 42, 44, 113, 129, 139

diving, deep sea, 153

Dixon, George "Little Chocolate," 151

Dominican Repubhc, 105

Dorchester (MA), 15, 27, 29, 128

Dorsey, Rev. John H., 131

Douglass

Frederick, 38 (illus.)-39, 54

Plaza, 85

Square Pharmacy, 83

dressmaking, 77. See also tailors,
drinking. See temperance.
Drop-A-Dime Program, 31
drugs, 31

Drury, Theodore, 64
dry goods business, 87
DuBois, William E. B., 41
Dudley Branch Library, 60, 110
Dugger, Edward, 126, 155
Dukakis, Gov. Michael S., 59
Dunbar Barbers, 83

Dupont-Columbia Gold Boston Award, 59
Dyett, Lovell, 118

Earle, Richard, 20
East

Boston, 45

Springfield Street, 143
Ebenezer Baptist Church, 131
Edelin, Dr. Kenneth C, 148-149
Edgerly, William, 125
Edison

Pioneers, 141

Thomas A., 141
education, 18-19, 25-29, 31, 40, 42, 44, 46, 48-

51, 53-54, 58. See also schools.
Educational Counseling Committee (NAACP),

Eight Black American Inventors, 58
Elam,

Clarence Richard, 97

Harry J., 27, 108 (illus.)
elderly, 22, 24, 30, 106
electric light bulb, 141
elevator operators, 85
Elhngton, Duke, 133
Elma Lewis School of Fine Arts, 70, 73
Emancipation Proclamation, 130
Emancipator and Free American, 112
Emmy Award, 59

employment. Black, 21-22, 26-29, 37, 96
Energy and Environmental Engineering, Inc.,
149

engineering, 147-149

England, king and queen of, 65

Episcopal Church, 131, 133, 136. See also

individual churches.
Estelle's (restaurant), 81, 85
Eure, Dexter D., Sr., 118
Eureka Co-operative Bank, 79-80 (illus.)
Europe, 70
Evans, Albert, 125
Everett High School, 154
Everson, William S., 125
"Evils of Intemperance," 63
Eyes on the Prize, 59

169

Fairbairn, Monica, 28

Faith, Culture and Leadership, 58

Falana, Lola, 67

Fall River (MA), 147

Faneuil Hall, 129

Farrakhan, Minister Louis, 134 (illus.)
"Faust," 64

Federal Reserve Bank, 91
Fern, Sylvia, 20
Ferriabough, Joyce, 31, 102
Fields, Carmen, 118

Fifty Sports Years along Memory Lane, 160

55th Massachusetts Regiment, 125

54th Massachusetts Regiment, 53, 123 (illus. )-

124 (illus. )-125
Filene's (department store), 85
firefighters, 44
First National Store, 24
Fitzgerald, Mayor, 95
"Five on Five" (TV), 58
flags, 77, 100, 125
Fletcher, Leo, 89
"Flying Colors," 69
Flynn, Mayor Raymond L., 100-102
food service, 24
football, 151, 154-155
Forbes, George W., 50, 116 (illus.)
Ford

Foundation, 28

Hall Forum, 67

President Gerald, 111

Samuel, 125
"Forever Free," (marble statue), 63
Forster, Estelle A., 66
Forsyth, George, 117
Fort Wagner, 125
Forty Best Songs, 50
Foster,

Cyrus, 46-47 (illus. )-48

Richard M., 125
Framingham (MA), 65, 121-122, 142
France, 126

Franklin, Benjamin, 23

Fredkin, Joyce, 119

Free Church. See Tremont Temple.

Freedom

Electronics and Engineering, 89

House, 26, 60
Freemasonry, 16
French and Indian War, 121
Frolic (dance hall), 70
Frye, Harold B., 147 (illus.)
Fuller,

Dr. Solomon Carter, 142 (illus.)

Meta Warwick, 65
Furr, Leon L., Sr., 153

Gage, Gov. General Thomas, 35
Gaines, Berthe M., 59
Gaither, Edmund B., 73
gambling, 76
gaming. See gambling.
Gamrell, Charles S., 125
Gardner,

Anna Bobbitt, 67

Cato, 18

Eliza Ann, 77 (illus.)
Garland,

Dr. Cornelius, 143-144 (illus.)

Judy, 70
Garner, Errol, 85-86
Garnett, Dr. Jessie G., 145 (illus.)
Garrison,

Juvenile, 19

Juvenile, Choir, 19

William Lloyd, 37, 112 (illus.)
Garrity, Judge W. Arthur, Jr., 44
Gaskins, Nelson, 94
George Middleton House, 53
Georgia, 129

gerrymandering. See redistricting.

Gilchrist's (department store), 85

Gillespie, Dizzy, 85

Gillette Company, 89

Gilmore Band, 62

Gittens, Donna Latson, 120

Golf, 155

tee, 151-152 (illus.)
Goode,

Dunson & Henry, 80

Jesse, 80

Trust Company, 80
Goodnight, Paul, 75
Goodwin, Prince, 17
Gourdin,

Edward "Ned," 153

Edward O., 127 (illus.)
Graham, Sandra, 99
Grand Army of the Republic, 126
Grant, Dr. George, 151-152
Gray,

John, 84

Percy, 84
Great Barrington (MA), 41
Greater Boston Negro Business and Trade

Association, 82
Greeks, 148
Green,

Elijah "Pumpsie," 157 (illus.)
Lewis C, 125

170

Greener, Richard Theodore, 48
Griffith, RolHns, 55, 57 (illus.)
Grimes,

Calvin M., Jr., 84 (illus.)

Calvin, Sr., 84 (illus.)

Oil Company, 84, 90

Rev. Leonard, 19, 129
Grimke, Archibald H., 105
"griot," (storyteller), 41
grocery business, 80
Grove Hall, 16
Guardian, 41, 95, 131
Guilford, James, 75, 83 (illus.)
guitar. See music.

Gulliver, Dr. Adelaide Cromwell, 57
Guscott, Kenneth, 30
gymnasium, 77

Hagler, Marvelous Marvin, 160 (illus.)

hairdresser, 82

Hall,

Charles H., 94

Dr. John B., Jr., 146

Dr. John B., Sr., 146

Primus, 46

Prince, 16 (illus.)
Hallowell, Colonel, 125
Hampton, Henry, 28, 59 (illus.), 119
Hancock School, 50
Harriet Tubman House, 20-21, 85, 88
Harris,

Charles E., 94

Frances, 146

Gilbert C, 79

Maceo, 23

Rev. Barbara C, 136 (illus.)
Harrison,

William, 116

William Henry, II, 125
' Hart, Tanya, 118
Harvard

College, 25, 48-49, 60, 73, 104, 151, 153
Law Review, 1 1 1
Law School, 49, 94, 105-106, 153
Medical School, 139, 144-145, 148
School of Dental Medicine, 148, 151

j University, 41, 49, 111, 116

I Hastie, William, 111
hat maker, 76

Hattie B. Cooper Community Center, 22
j Haughton, Alfred, 116
!i Hawkins, Coleman, 86
i Hayden,
Harriet, 40

Lewis, 40 (illus.), 93, 121
Lewis, House, 53

Robert C, 57-58, 140
Hayes, Roland, 65 (illus.)
Haynes,

Rev. Michael E., 136-137 (illus.)

Roy, 72 (illus.)
Head Start Program, 25
health and health care, 19, 21, 83
Healy, Bishop James A., 129
Henderson, James, 69 (illus.)
Hendricks, Caesar, 104
Henry

Dr. Joseph L., 148

Owens Movers, 82
Henson, Julia O., 20
Hester, Beulah H., 97
Hi Hat (club), 68, 85
high-tech industries, 89
Highland Park, 30, 58
HI I Corporation, 90
Hill,

Dr. Henry A., 146

Gerry, 55
Hines,

Edward, 125

Geraldine, 110

Gregory, 70
Hinton,

Dr. William A., 145 (illus.)

Test, 145

Hispanic community, 28, 44-45, 57, 74, 102
History of
METCO, 58

the Negro Race in America, 48

Twelfth Baptist Church, 48
Histrionic Club, 62
hockey, 153

Hogan, Benjamin, 125

HolHston (MA), 25, 154

Holloway, Charles M., 125

Holt, Barbara, 75

Holy Cross, Cathedral of, 131

Holyoke Street, 20

Home for Aged Colored Women, 19

Homer, Ronald A., 90

Honey Hill (SC), Battle of, 125

Honeywell Information Systems, 89

Hopkins, Pauline, 63

Housewives League, 87

housing, 26, 28-30, 32, 37, 42, 44-45, 96

Houston,

Charles, 111

Judge Julian, 106, 110
Howard

Athenaeum, 39

Peter, 17

University, 59, 106
Howe, Cato, 17

171

Hoyt, Stewart E., 95
The Hub, 105
Hubbard,

George, 156 (illus.)

Mayor, 95

HUD. See U.S. Office of Housing and Urban

Development.
Hughes, Langston, 73
Hurley, Arnold, 75
Hyde Park, 27

immigration, 107

"In the Jungle of the Cities," 70

Indians, American, 34, 74, 92

In Put Out Put Computer Service, 90

Intervale Street, 133

inventors and inventions, 138, 141-142, 149,

151, 153
Iowa, 126

Irish immigrants, 129, 142
Irving Street, 76
I slew, Bert, 113
Itahans, 50, 82, 142
Italy, 127

Jackman, Will "Cannonball," 153 (illus. )-154
Jackson,

Barbara, 55

Charles H., 153

Clarence Noel, 83

Ellen Swepson, 55 (illus.)

George E., 125

Gretchen, 1 17

Herbert Loring, 94, 96

Jesse, 102

Stephen, 76
Jamaica Plain, 27
janitorial services, 90
jazz, 31, 68, 72, 85-86, 133
J. B. Johnson Funeral Home, 83
Jefferson, Dr. Mildred, 148
Jenifer, Dr. Franklyn, 59
Jenkins, Charlie, 156 (illus.)
Jesse Goode Associates, 80
Jewish Daily Forward, 50
Jews, 50, 142

Jimmy Guilford's Men's Hair Salon, 83
J. J. S. Services, 90

John B. Cruz Construction Company, 86

John J. Smith House, 53

Johnson,

Jack, 151

James R, 125

J. B., Funeral Home, 83

Jestina A., 20

John H., 125

Larry, 75
Jones,

Anna Faith, 31

Clarence "Jeep," 100

Hubert "Hubie," 58

K. C, 157

Lois Mailou, 75
Jones-Henderson, Napoleon, 75
Joplin, Scott, 74
Jordan, Robert, 118
Josselyn, John, 15
Joy Street, 17

Baptist Church, 129
Justice George Lewis Ruffin Society, 106
Juvenile Garrison Independent Society, 18

Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, 147

Kelly, Madeline Kountze Dugger, 27

Ken, Bostian, 15

Kennedy, Harriet, 75

Kiernan, Dr. Owen B., 54

King,

Dr. Martin Luther, Jr., 42 (illus. )-43 (illus.)

Henry, 125

Joyce, 101

Lloyd, 30

Mel, 101 (illus.)

Street, 121
Klugh, Rev. Davis S., 132
Knights of Pythias, 21
Kountze, Mabray "Doc," 160
Krunkleton, Cyrus, 125
Ku Klux Klan, 41
Kuumba Singers, 73

labor and labor unions, 78 (illus.), 89

L'Africaine Singers, 67

La Alianza, 28

Laing, Daniel, 139

Landsmark, Theodore, 100

Lane, W. C, 93

Langford, Sam, 151-152 (illus.)

Langhart, Janet, 1 19

Latimer, Lewis, 141 (illus.)

laundries, 79, 126

Laviscount, Rev. Samuel L., 24 (illus.)

law, lawsuits, and lawyers, 44, 48, 92, 95, 104-

111, 126, 144, 151, 161
League of

Women for Community Service, 21

Women Voters, 87
Leattimore, Andrew B., 95
Lee,

Bertram, 119, 161

172

David, 88 (illus.)
Joseph, 142
Rebecca, 139
Lena Park
Associates, 29

Community Development Corporation, 29
Lenox Street, 67
Leonard, Sugar Ray, 160
LeSuerer, Florence, 42 (illus.)
Lew, Barzillai, 121
Lewis,

Augustus, 125

Edmonia, 63

Elma, 31, 70-71 (illus.)

J. H., 78

Lillian, 113

Oscar, 126

Sabby, 68 (illus.)

William H., 95, 106-107 (illus.), 151
Lewis Hayden House, 53
Lexington (MA), 55

Battle of, 122
The Liberator, 36 (illus. )-37 (illus.), 112-113
Liberty Guards, 123
libraries and librarians, 50, 59-60
Lightfoot, Sara Lawrence, 31
Lincoln

Abraham, 130

and the Negro, 53

(MA), 55-56

Pharmacy, 96
linkage plan, 31, 102

literature and literary societies, 19-20, 34, 37,

64-65
Little,

Malcolm. See Malcolm X.

Theater Players, 70
livery business, 79
Living Is Easy (novel), 64
Locard, Lewis J., 125
Lodge, Henry Cabot, 105
Lomax, Leon G., 82
Long Bay Management, 30
"Love to Love You, Baby," 74
Lower Roxbury Community Development

Corporation, 30
Lowther, George W., 94
[! Lucas, Thomas E., 80
j Lynn (MA), 151, 154
Lynnfield (MA), 155

I M Street High School (Washington, D.C.), 49
M/A-COM. See Microwave Associates, Inc.
Mac Arthur, John D. and Catherine T,

Foundation, 31
Madison Square Garden, 157

Mahoney, Mary Eliza, 139-140 (illus.)
mail order business, 79
Maine, 104, 107, 129
Malcolm X, 132-133
Maiden (MA), 94

City Council, 96
Mallory, Ed, 155
manufacturers, 90
Maple Street, 29
Marblehead (MA), 15
Martha's Vineyard Island, 32-33 (illus.), 65
Martin,

Barron, 119

Rev. John Sella, 129
Mashow, John, 138
Masonry. See Freemasonry,
masons, brick, 84
Massachusetts

Anti-Slavery Society, 39

Attorney General, 108

Attorney General, Assistant, 108

Attorney General, Special Assistant to, 97-98

Avenue, 21-22, 26, 82, 85-87

Bankers Association, 32

Bar, 104, 107

Bar Association, 109

Bay Colony, 34

Bay Transportation Authority, 100
Board of Education, 54, 56
Board of Veterinary Physicians, 143
Chancellor of Higher Education, 59
Chancery, 79

Civil Service Examination, 146
College of Pharmacy, 83
Commission

Against Discrimination, 69

of Community Affairs, 26

of Public Health, 149
Communities and Development, Executive

Office of, 97
Council on the Arts and Humanities, 74
Department of

Commerce, 26

Correction, 99

Public Works, 147

Social Services, 1 10
Fair Housing Commission, 136
General Colored Association, 37-38
General Court, 93. See also Massachusetts

legislature.
General Hospital, 150
Governor's Council, 95, 97
Heart Association, 147
House of Representatives, 39, 93-94, 96, 99,

101-102
Housing Board, 97
Institute of Technology, 60, 101, 147

173

Insurance Department, 146

Judicial Court, 127

Latino Democratic Committee, 102

Legislative Black Caucus, 99

legislature, 35, 40, 42, 46, 48, 78, 92, 94-95,

113, 121
Library Commissioner, 57
Medical Association, 139
Mother of the Year, 27
National Guard, 126-127
Negro Educators Association, 55
Parole Board, 26, 96, 108, 136
Public Health Department, 146
Racial Imbalance Act, 42, 55
Secretary of

Education, 98

Transportation, 91
Senate, 78, 99, 101
State

Auditor, 102

Engineers and Associates, 147

House, 42, 125

Militia, 95, 121, 123
Superior Court, 108, 110, 153
Massasoit Guards, 123
Mather, Cotton, 138
Mattapan, 27, 29
Matzeliger, Jan E., 141
Maverick, Samuel, 15
McClain, Joshua, 22
McGhee, Andy, 86
McGuire, Jean, 55
McJohnson, Robert, 125
Medford (MA), 27, 153-155

School Committee, 97
Melbourne Hotel, 80
Melnea Cass Boulevard, 22, 128
Merced, Nelson, 102
METCO, 55-56

Metropolitan Council for Educational

Opportunities. See METCO.
Microwave Associates, 148
Miller,

John, 125

Melvin, 118-119 (illus.)
Minutemen, 122
Mitchell,

Charles L., 94, 141

Donnat, 118

Gaunzetta, 53

J. Marcus, 28, 53, 72, 75

Lucy M., 25 (illus.)

Nellie Brown, 141

Oscar Lieber, 131
Montgomery, Louis, 155
Montier, 22
Moorhead,

Rev. John, 62

Scipio, 62
Morehouse College of Medicine, 150
Morgan,

Bob "The Chef," 87 (illus.)

Clement G., 49, 94-95

State College, 54
Morris,

Frank, 97 (illus.)

Robert, 104-105 (illus.)

William H., 125
Morrison, George, 30
Moses, Robert, 31
Mothers for Adequate Welfare, 29
moving/rigging business, 82
Muhammad,

Elijah, 134

Minister Don, 134
Muriel Snowden International High School, 60
Murphy, Bobby, 156 (illus.)
Museum of

Afro-American History, 28, 53

Fine Arts, Boston, 73

Negro History, See Museum of Afro-
American History,
music and musicians, 62, 64-66, 69, 12-14, 85-

Music and Some Highly Musical People, 63
Myrtle Baptist Church, 131

NAACP, 23-26, 32, 40-42, 44-45, 50, 53, 64,

105, 116
Nantucket (MA), 39
Nash, Kendell, 117
Natick (MA), 128
Nation of Islam, 134

Temple, 133
National

Aeronautics and Space Administration, 149
Association for the Advancement of Colored

People. See NAACP
Association of Colored

Graduate Nurses, 140

Women, 20
Basketball Association, 158, 161
Business League, 87
Caucus and Center on Black Aged, 24
Center of Afro-American Artists, 70

Museum of, 73
Collegiate Athletic Association, 155
Federation of Afro-American Women, 20
Medical Association, 142
Negro Business League, 79
Organization for the Advancement of Black

Chemists, 149
Park Service, 53

174

Republican Convention, 79

Urban League, 21
NBC Radio, 68
Negro

Federal Theatre of Massachusetts, 66

History Week, 51

in the American Revolution, 53

in the Making of America, 53

Repertory Theatre, 66
Nell, William C, 40, 48, 62, 92 (illus.), 113,

121
Nelson,

Charles E., 125

David S., 109
New Bedford (MA), 76, 78, 104, 125, 138, 140

City Council, 104
New Dudley Street, 22, 57
New England

Anti-Slavery Society, 38

Conservatory of Music, 63, 66

Hospital for Women and Children, 139

Telephone, 89

Temperance Society of People of Color, 19

Tennis Association, 154
New Hampshire, 107
New York, 19, 64, 68-69

newspapers and newspaper publishing, 79. See

also newspapers by name.
Newton (MA), 55, 131, 137

Board of Aldermen, 98

Theological Seminary, 48
Nieman Fellow, 1 16
Nine Black American Doctors, 58
Noddles Island, 15
North

Dorchester, 22, 29

End, 50

Northeastern University, 53, 73-74, 106, 147
nurses and nursing, 41, 126, 139, 143-144
(illus.), 146

Oak Bluffs (MA), 32

Obama, Barack H., Ill

O'Bryant, John D., 55, 57 (illus.)-58

obstetrics and gynecology, 144, 148

Odd Fellows, 19, 77

oil business, 84

Old Howard (dance hall), 70

Onesimus, 138

opera, 64, 74

Operation Exodus, 55

Organization for a New Equality (O.N.E.), 32
Osby, Greg, 86
Overbea, Luix, 118
Owens,
Bill, 99

Henry, Sr., 82 (illus.)
Rev. Richard M., 134 (illus.)
Owens-Hicks, Shirley, 99

P & B. See Professional and Business Men's

Club.
Paige Academy, 58
Park Street, 125

Church, 41
Parker, Charlie, 72, 85-86
Parks, Paul, 98

Parting Ways (community), 17
Patrick,

Dr. Thomas W, 142 (illus.)

School of Pharmacy, 142
Paul,

Rev. Thomas, 38, 129-130 (illus.)

Revere School, 50

Susan, 19, 38
Pearl Harbor, 127
People's

Baptist Church, 132, 134

Theater Company, 70
Perry, Samuel R, 60 (illus.)
Peterson, Oscar, Trio, 85-86
petroleum products, 90

pharmacies and pharmacists, 96, 140, 142, 146
Phi Beta Kappa, 49
Philadelphia (PA), 38

Colored Giants, 154
Phillips,

School, 53

Street, 40, 76
phoneterion, 141
physicians, 48, 139, 143-150
piano-forte. See music.
Pianoforte Studio. See Academy of Musical

Arts.

Pierce, Rudolph E, 109
Pilot, 131

Pilot, Ann Hobson, 72 (illus. )-73

Pinckney Street, 17

Pioneer Club, 85

Pitcairn, Major, 122

Pitts Hotel, 80

Pittsburgh (PA), 139

Planned Parenthood Federation, 149

Plea for the Negro Soldiers, 64

Plymouth

Hospital, 143 (illus. )-144 (illus.)

(MA), 17, 34

Rock Chapter of Odd Fellows, 77
"Poems on Various Subjects," 61-62
poets, 61, 64
police, 22, 31
Pompey, 122

175

Pope,

James W., 94

Lincoln, 95
population, Black, 17-19, 21, 27, 30, 34
Poro School and Beauty Shoppe, 82
Porter, James W., 149
post office. S^e U.S. Post Office.
Potomea, Job, 122
Poussaint, Dr. Alvin, 148
Price, Cornelius, 125
Prince, 122

Lucy Terry, 61
printing business, 76, 79, 86, 141
Professional

and Business Men's Club, 26

Hairdressers Association, 82
Progressive Musical Union, 63
Project

AFRIC, 58

Commitment, 108
Prothrow-Stith, Dr. Deborah, 149
Providence

Art Club, 62

Island, 15
psychiatry, 142, 148

Purple Heart medal, 127. See also decorations

and medals.
Putnam,

Glendora, 108

Jane, 19

Quarles,

Dr. Benjamin, 53-54

Henry E., Sr., 107
Quash, Quamany, 17
Quincy-Geneva Housing Corporation, 28
Quinn, Robert, 108

Racial Imbalance Act, 42, 55
Radcliffe College, 73
railroad workers, 20
Rainbow Coalition, 102
Rainey, Julian, 95, 107
Ramsay, David L., 128 (illus.)
Randolph, Rev. Peter, 131 (illus.)
Raymond, Theodore, 80
real estate business, 79, 90
Reconstruction, 98
redistricting, 102
Reed,

F. Marion, 50

James, 75

William L., 94-95
Reminiscences of My Life in Camp, 126
Remond,

Charles Lenox, 39 (illus.), 121
Sarah, 39
Republican
National Convention, 79, 95, 105
Party, 96, 105

State Central Committee, 94
restaurants and restaurant workers, 78-80, 87
Resthaven Nursing Home, 106
Revolutionary War. See American Revolution.
Rhode Island, 121
Richard Earle Pioneer Club, 20
Richardson, Elliot, 108
Rickson, Gary, 75

Rindge, "Rider of Dreams" (play), 67
Rindge Technical High School, 156 (illus.)
Ritz-Carlton Hotel, 68
Riverside Research Library, 146
RKO (theater), 70
Robert Gould Shaw

House, 21, 25, 154

Memorial, 53
Roberts,

Benjamin, 48, 76, 112

Louis W, 148-149 (illus.)

Sarah, 48
Robinson,

Bruce, 108

Cornelia, 20

Rudy, 75

Sugar Ray, 67, 83
Rock, John Sweat, 104-105 (illus.)
Rogers, Jimmy, 85
Roland Hayes: A Biography, 58
Roman Catholic Church, 129, 131
Roslindale (MA), 27
Ross,

Diana, 67

John Andrew, 73
Roxbury, 21-24, 26-30, 42, 58, 67, 72, 82-84,

101, 103, 106, 117, 126, 128, 131-132, 134-

136, 139, 154

Action Program (RAP), 30

Community College, 57, 88

District Court, 127, 153
Child Care Center, 110

Multi-Service Center (RMSC), 27-28

Sportsmen, 154
Ruffin,

George L., 94, 106

Josephine L., 20

Stanley, 94
Ruggles Street, 21, 88
Rushing, Byron, 28
Russell,

Bill, 158-159 (illus.)

George, 31, 102
Russo-Japanese War, 48

176

Ruth M. Batson Educational Foundation, 56
S

Saint/St.

Augustine and St. Martin Church, 67, 131

Augustine Church, 131

Cyprian's Episcopal Church, 132 (illus.)

Gaudens, Augustus, 125

John the Evangelist, Society of, 131

John's Baptist Church, 131

Mark Congregational Church, 24

Mark Musical and Literary Union, 20
Salem

(MA), 39

Peter, 122
Samuel (ex-slave), 121
Sanders, Walter, 118
Sargent, Gov. Frank, 98
Saunders, Prince, 46
SAVE OUR LIBRARIES, 59
Savoy (club), 68
"Say Brother" (TV show), 119
Schenck, John W., 107
Scheneck, Anthony, 125
Scott

and Duncan Company, 90

Jackie Jenkins, 139
sculpture, 63, 65
seamen, 123
Seaver Street, 29
Seavers, Richard, 123

segregation, 25, 39-40, 42, 44, 48, 53-55, 137.

See also discrimination.
Self Elevator, 112
"Selling of Joseph," 34

Services of the Colored Americans in the Wars

1776 and 1812, 113
settlement houses, 20-22
Seven Black American Scientists, 58
Sewall, Samuel, 34
Shannon, Rev. David T., 137
Sharp School, 49
Shaw,

Robert Gould, 21, 63, 123

Sarah Ann, 118
Shawmut Avenue, 24
Shearer Cottage, 32
Shelburne,

John, 154

Recreational Center, 154
Sheridan Broadcasting Company, 117
Sherman School, 23
ships and shipbuilding, 15, 76, 138
shoes, making of, 141
Shubert Theatre, 41
Singing for All People, 58
Slade, Renner, 81

Slade's Restaurant, 81, 85

slaves and slavery, 15, 17, 19, 34-37, 39-41, 61-

63, 93, 104-105, 121, 130-131, 138, 141
Slyde, Jimmy, 70-71 (illus.)
smallpox, 138
Smith,

Abiel, 46

Blanche V, 49

Court, 28, 53

Eleanor A., 49

Elizabeth N., 49

Hamilton S., 106

Harriet L., 49

James A., 158-159 (illus.)

John J., 17, 53, 93 (illus. )-94

Joshua B., 78, 94, 121

Larry, 156 (illus.)

Mary E., 49

Ralph D., 30 (illus.)

School, 47 (illus. )-48, 53

WilHs J., 125
Snowden,

Col. Frank M., 126-127 (illus.)

Muriel, 26-27 (illus.), 31, 60

Otto, 26-27 (illus.), 60
soldiers, 21-22, 125, 138

Relief Fair, 63
Some of the Colored People of God, 68
"Something about the Blues," 70
South

Boston, 45

Carolina, 125

Carolina, University of, 48
End, 20-23, 25, 48, 54, 86, 101, 126, 146,
154

Electric Company, 82
Medical Society, 146

Station, 88
Southern Dining Room, 80-81 (illus.)
Southwest Corridor Urban Design, 88
Soviet Union, 1 16
Spanish American War, 126
Sparrow

Park, 154

Titus, 154
Spingarn Medal, 64
spiritual songs, 65, 69
Sportsmen's Tennis Club, 158-159
Springfield (MA), 109

Republican, 116
Stanley Brown Dance Studio, 67
"A Star Is Born," 70
State Street Bank, 16
Steele, JuHan, 25 (illus.)
Stevenson, William, 93
Steward,

Dr. Charles, 115

177

Maude Trotter, 115
Stewart,

Maria W., 37

Peyton, 77

Slam, 85
Still, Dr. James T., 48
Stith, Rev. Charles, 32
Stitt, Sonny, 85
Stokes, Louise, 154
Stoneham (MA), 122
storytelling, 46
Street, J. Gordon, 113
Stull

and Lee, 88

Donald L., 88 (illus.)
Suffolk

County, 104

District, Fifth, 102

University Law School, 107
Sufshay, Samuel, 125
Sullavou, Emmanual, 104
SuUivan, Dr. Louis W., 150
Summer, Donna, 74-75 (illus.)
"Sunday in the Park" (art show), 72
syphilis, 145

Taft, President William Howard, 106

tailor, 78-79

Tanner, John, 125

"Tap" (film), 70

Taylor,

Balcom (Bal), 85, 96 (illus.)
E. Alice, 23 (illus.), 82
Marshall W. "Major," 151
Richard, 91

Silas (Shag), 85, 96 (illus.)

W. O., 41
Teamoh, Robert T, 94, 113
telecommunications, 90
temperance, 19
Temple

Lewis, 138

Toggle. See whaling harpoon,
tennis, 154, 158

theater and theatrical businesses, 69 (illus. )-70

Theater Company of Boston, 70

Thomas,

Gerald E., 128

John, 157-158 (illus.)

William, 125
Thurman,

Dr. Howard, 28, 133 (illus.)

Sue Bailey, 28
Tileston School District, 56
"To S.M., a Young African Painter," 62
tobacco, 15

Toon, Therman, 118

Torrence, Ridley, 67

track and field, 153-156 (illus. )-158

Treemonisha (opera), 74

Tremont

Street, 63, 81, 85, 87, 96, 132

Temple, 129-130, 137

Theatre, 41
trombone. See music.
Trotter,

James Monroe, 63

Wilham Monroe, 40-41, 49, 115 (illus. )-l 16,
135

Tubman, Harriet, 20-21. See also Harriet

Tubman House.
Tufts

Dental School, 145

University, 74
Turner,

Charles "Chuck," 28-29 (illus.)

Henry C, 79

John E, 153

Plato, 17
TV and TV awards, 59
"Two Voyages to New England," 15

Underground Railroad, 17, 40

undertakers, 79, 83

Union

Army, 126

United Methodist Church, 22, 32, 133
United

Community Construction Workers, 89
Daughters of Zion, 19
Shoe Machinery Corporation, 141
South End Settlements, 21
U.S.

Army, 126
Attorney, 109

Assistant, 106-107
census, 17

Comprehensive Child Development Act, 58
Consul, 48
Department of

Health and Human Services, 117

Health, Education and Welfare, 28, 150

Transportation, 149
Environmental Agency, 149
Federal magistrate, 109
House of Representatives, 104
Military Academy, 128
Navy, 128
Office of

Economic Opportunity, 28

Housing and Urban Development (HUD),
44

178

Olympic Team, 154, 157
Post Office, 92
Secretary of

Transportation, 1 1 1

War, 127
Senate, 98, 109
Supreme Court, 104

Tennis and American Tennis Association, 158
U.S.S. Impervious, 128
Unity Bank, 89-90

Upper Roxbury Community Project, 26
Urban League of Boston, 21, 24, 26, 85
urban renewal and development, 24, 27, 31. See
also chapter on Community Development.

vaccination, 138
Van Allen, Charles, 125
Vanderpool, George, 125
Vassar College, 60
Vermont, 107
veterinary medicine, 143
VEW., 128
Vietnam, 128

Veterans Benefits Clearinghouse, 44
Vineyard Gazette, 65
viola. See music,
violin. See music,
violoncello. See music.
Virginia, 131
Vladivostock, 48
voting rights, 96
Vulcans, 44

Waddell, Hibernia, 20
Walcott,

Joe, 152 (illus.)

Joseph, 86
Walker,

David, 37

Dr. Bailus, 149

Edwin G., 94

Liz, 119 (illus.)

Richard M., 148
Wall, Rev. Bruce M., 31
Wally's Paradise (club), 68, 86
Walton,

Ford Volkswagen, 91

Ortiz, 72
War of 1812, 123
Ward,

Ralph "Stodie," 156

Nine, 92, 96
wars. See wars by name.
Washington,

Booker T., 79, 116, 135

D.C., 32, 49, 59, 69
General George, 121
Henry, 75

National League, 20
Rachel M., 63

Street, 16, 21-22, 77-78, 128
Wasserman Laboratory, 145
Watson,

Cornelius, 125

Georgette, 31
WBMS radio, 117
WBOS radio, 117
WBZ radio, 118
WBZ-TV, 118-119
WCVB-TV, 119-120
Webb, Clifton, 69
Weddington, Elaine C, 161 (illus.)
Weld, Gov. William, 91
Wellesley (MA), 55
West

Africa, 17

Dorothy, 64 (illus. )-65
End, 17, 50

Branch Library, 50
Indies, 15, 132
Medford, 67, 160
Newton, 67
Rutland Square, 66
Westfield Ford, 91
Westin Hotel, 68
Westport (MA), 76
WGBH-TV, 118-119
whales and whaling, 138
whaling harpoon, 138
WHDH radio, 117, 119
WHDH-TV, 117, 119
Wheatley, Phillis, 61 (illus. )-62
White,
Augustus A., 11, 148
Charles Frederick, 64
Kevin H., 98, 100
Whiteman, Helen, 95
Whitemore, Cuff, 122
wig manufacture, 79
WILD radio, 117
Wilkerson, Dianne, 44
Will (ex-slave), 121
Williams,

Archie, 89 (illus.)
Edward, 125
George Washington, 48
Henry E, 62
William J., 95
Willis,

Franklin, 125
Jack, 119
Wilson,

Bob, 118

Butler, 41

Dr. Laval S., 59

William, 125
Winfrey, Robert, 73
WNEV-TV (Channel 7), 119
Woburn (MA), 131
Wolff, James H., 126
Women's

Army Corps (WAC), 69

Bar Association, 111

Era Club, 20

Relief Corps, 126

rights, 37

Service Club, 22
Wood, Gladys, 56
Woodrow Avenue, 128
woodworking, 90
Worcester (MA), 151

World

Anti-Slavery Society, 39

War I, 19, 21, 126

War II, 22, 117, 127
Worthy,

Dr. William, 91

William, Jr., 116-117 (illus.)
Wright,

Dr. Louis T., 144-145 (illus.)

Dr. Mary Crutchfield, 146

Yancey, Charles, 102

Yarde, Richard, 75

Yates, lola D., 49

Young, Annie W, 20

Youth, 20-21, 23-29, 67, 73, 110

Youville Hospital, 146

YWCA, 25, 29

180

Introducing

Robert C. Hayden, Author

and Joyce Ferriabough, Coordinator

Robert C. Hayden

Educator, historian, and author, Hayden is known nationally
for his writing, lecturing, and teaching on the history of Af-
rican-Americans. He is the author of Seven Black American
Scientists (1970), Eight Black American Inventors (1972,
1989), Nine Black American Doctors, with co-author Jacque-
line Harris (1976), and Black in America: Episodes in U.S.
History (1969). He was a contributor to Dictionary of Amer-
ican Negro Biography (1982). From 1974-1983 his weekly col-
umn, "Boston's Black History," appeared in the Bay State
Banner in Boston. In 1986 he wrote A Guide to the TV Series
Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years 1954 to 1965.

Hayden's first biography, Singing for All People: Roland
Hayes, was published in 1989, written especially for young
people. His other books include Faith, Culture and Leader-
ship: A History of the Black Church in Boston; Boston's
NAACP History: 1910 to 1982; and The African Meeting
House in Boston: A Celebration of History.

A member of the National Executive Committee of the As-
sociation for the Study of Afro-American Life and History,
and president of the Boston branch of the Association, Rob-
ert Hayden is also a lecturer in the Department of African-
American Studies at Northeastern University, in the Black
Studies Program at Boston College, and holds adjunct fac-
ulty positions at Bentley College and Curry College.

Robert C. Hayden is the executive director of the Massa-
chusetts Pre-Engineering Program. From 1980-1982 he was
employed by the Boston Public Schools where he served in
several positions — special assistant and executive assistant
to the superintendent and director of project development.

From 1980-1982 Hayden was director of the Secondary
Technical Education Project at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology. From 1970-1973 he served as executive director
of the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity
(METCO) in Boston and then worked in educational research
and development at the Educational Development Center in
Newton, Massachusetts.

183

During the early years of his career Hayden was a science
teacher, a news writer for Current Science, and a science ed-
itor in the educational division of Xerox Corporation.

He earned his B.A. in 1959 and Master's degree in 1961
from Boston University and has completed two postgraduate
fellowships — one at Harvard University's Graduate School
of Education (1965-1966), the other at the Department of
Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology (1976-1977).

184

Joyce Ferriabough

Joyce Ferriabough introduced the concept for this book and
coordinated the project which led to its pubhcation. She is a
media and pohtical strategist and pubHc relations specialist
with a diverse background in television production, market-
ing, event planning, research and analysis, program and pro-
ject development and implementation, fund raising, and
community organizing.

She has worked as a producer/writer for major market tel-
evision in California and Boston. In 1983 Ferriabough worked
with Councillor Bruce Boiling to research, write, and promote
his linkage legislation that ties downtown development to
community development. She has used her skills as a media
and political strategist in a number of local, state, and na-
tional campaigns, among them: City Councillor Bruce Boil-
ing's 1983 re-election; Rev. Jesse Jackson's presidential
campaign in 1984; and City Councillor Charles Yancey's run
for state auditor in 1986, marking the first time an African-
American representing the Democratic Party won a place on
the statewide ballot.

In the areas of public relations and promotion, Joyce Fer-
riabough has been involved in a number of high-profile activ-
ities, among them: the NAACP's Diamond Anniversary; the
25th Anniversary of Action for Boston Community Develop-
ment (ABCD); and the city of Boston's annual celebrations
of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

In 1988 Ferriabough was appointed by Mayor Raymond
Flynn to serve as director of the city's celebration of 350 Years
of Black Presence in Boston, working with Rosemarie San-
sone, director of the city's Office of Business and Cultural
Development. This major project led to Ferriabough's idea
for this book, African- Americans in Boston: More Than 350
Years. During the yearlong celebration which highlighted Af-
rican-American achievements, she also produced a number
of events including a popular "Art of Jazz" exhibit at City
Hall, which brought together two of the nation's oldest Af-
rican-American museums, Boston's African Meeting House

185

and Chicago's DuSable Museum. During the celebration Fer-
riabough also designed a rap and mural program in four city
parks, designed to teach children the history of African-
American achievements in Boston.

In 1989 she worked in partnership with Susan Kooperstein
to design media materials, both video and print, in nine dif-
ferent languages, and a public relations campaign to promote
the Boston School Department's new "school choice" pro-
gram. She volunteers her time working with young people at
Boston's Chez Vouz Roller Rink and each year produces their
Black Youth Pride March and job fairs.

Ferriabough is frequently quoted in the press for her views
on political trends and news developments, especially issues
affecting the African-American community. She was cited as

186

a role model in the Boston Heralds tribute to 350 Years of
Black Presence, an educational tool for the Boston schools.
She is listed in the annual publication of 100 Most Influential
Blacks in Boston. In 1991 she was elected president of the
Black Political Task Force, the oldest political action group
in Massachusetts. With this election, Ferriabough became
only the second woman to hold that position in the organi-
zation's 12-year history.

Joyce Ferriabough grew up in the Roxbury, Dorchester,
South End, and Mattapan sections of Boston. She was a Na-
tional Honor Society graduate of the Jeremiah E. Burke High
School in Dorchester and attended Boston State Teachers
College and the University of California at Berkeley where
she majored in journalism and political science.

187

BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY

3 9999 02847 101 7

Cover design by Larry Johnson